Book Image

Drupal 8 Module Development - Second Edition

By : Daniel Sipos
Book Image

Drupal 8 Module Development - Second Edition

By: Daniel Sipos

Overview of this book

Drupal 8 comes with a release cycle that allows for new functionality to be added at a much faster pace. However, this also means code deprecations and changing architecture that you need to stay on top of. This book updates the first edition and includes the new functionality introduced in versions up to, and including 8.7. The book will first introduce you to the Drupal 8 architecture and its subsystems before diving into creating your first module with basic functionality. You will work with the Drupal logging and mailing systems, learn how to output data using the theme layer and work with menus and links programmatically. Then, you will learn how to work with different kinds of data storages, create custom entities, field types and leverage the Database API for lower level database queries. You will further see how to introduce JavaScript into your module, work with the various file systems and ensure the code you write works on multilingual sites. Finally, you will learn how to programmatically work with Views, write automated tests for your functionality and also write secure code in general. By the end, you will have learned how to develop your own custom module that can provide complex business solutions. And who knows, maybe you’ll even contribute it back to the Drupal community. Foreword by Dries Buytaert, founder of Drupal.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)

Testing methodologies in Drupal 8

Like many other development aspects, automated testing has been greatly improved in Drupal 8. In the previous version, the testing framework was a custom one built specifically for testing Drupal applications—Simpletest. Its main testing capability focused on functional testing with a strong emphasis on user interaction with a pseudo-browser. However, it was quite strong and allowed a wide range of functionality to be tested.

Drupal 8 development started with Simpletest as well. However, with the adoption of PHPUnit, Drupal is moving away from it and is in the process of deprecating it. To replace it, there is a host of different types of tests—all run by PHPUnit—that can cover more testing methodologies. So let's see what these are.

Drupal 8 comes with the following types of testing:

  • Simpletest: exists for legacy reasons...