The Features module is an outstanding solution for exporting module or site configuration that resides in the database as source code within a module. This has the following benefits:
Features can store menus, user permissions, site settings, views, and contexts, among many others. Each of these is a feature component
You can check which feature components have changed in the database by comparing them against the source code in the feature
Features, as modules, can be installed in other sites, which helps reusability
The source code of a feature can be version-controlled like any other module
Note
You should have basic skills of using the Features module, through the administration interface, in order to make the most out of the following examples. A good place to start is at the documentation home page at http://drupal.org/node/580026.
In this example, we will create a view, add it to a feature, change the view, and see how the feature reflects this change. Here are...