<!DOCTYPE html>
<html class="no-js" lang="en-GB">
<head>
<title>Dividing Drupal's process and preprocess functions into separate files | Oliver Davies</title>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<meta property="og:url" content="https://www.oliverdavies.uk/blog/2012/05/24/dividing-drupals-process-and-preprocess-functions-separate-files">
<meta property="og:title" content="Dividing Drupal's process and preprocess functions into separate files"/>
<meta property="og:image" content="https://www.oliverdavies.uk/assets/images/me-precedent.jpg"/>
<meta property="og:image:height" content="327"/>
<meta property="og:image:type" content="image/jpg">
<meta property="og:image:width" content="327"/>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://www.oliverdavies.uk/assets/css/main.css">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/assets/images/me-precedent.jpg?s=57" sizes="57x57">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/assets/images/me-precedent.jpg?s=114" sizes="114x114">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/assets/images/me-precedent.jpg?s=72" sizes="72x72">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/assets/images/me-precedent.jpg?s=144" sizes="144x144">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/assets/images/me-precedent.jpg?s=60" sizes="60x60">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/assets/images/me-precedent.jpg?s=120" sizes="120x120">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/assets/images/me-precedent.jpg?s=76" sizes="76x76">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/assets/images/me-precedent.jpg?s=152" sizes="152x152">
<link rel="icon" href="/assets/images/me-precedent.jpg?s=160" sizes="160x160">
<link rel="icon" href="/assets/images/me-precedent.jpg?s=96" sizes="96x96">
<link rel="icon" href="/assets/images/me-precedent.jpg?s=32" sizes="32x32">
<link rel="icon" href="/assets/images/me-precedent.jpg?s=16" sizes="16x16">
</head>
<body class="">
<nav class="navbar navbar-inverse navbar-fixed-top">
<div class="container">
<div class="navbar-header">
<button type="button" class="navbar-toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#navbar" aria-expanded="false" aria-controls="navbar">
<span class="sr-only">Toggle navigation</span>
<span class="icon-bar"></span>
<span class="icon-bar"></span>
<span class="icon-bar"></span>
</button>
<a class="navbar-brand" href="https://www.oliverdavies.uk/">Oliver Davies</a>
</div>
<div id="navbar" class="collapse navbar-collapse" role="navigation">
<ul class="nav navbar-nav">
<li class="">
<a href="/">About</a>
</li>
<li class="">
<a href="/experience">Experience</a>
</li>
<li class="">
<a href="/testimonials">Testimonials</a>
</li>
<li class="">
<a href="/talks">Talks</a>
</li>
<li class="active">
<a href="/blog">Blog</a>
</li>
<li class="">
<a href="/contact">Contact</a>
</li>
</ul>
</div> </div>
</nav>
<div class="container">
<div class="row">
<main class="col-md-9">
<h1>Dividing Drupal's process and preprocess functions into separate files</h1>
<p class="posted text-light">24th May 2012</p>
<p>If you use a lot of process and preprocess functions within your Drupal theme, then your template.php can get very long and it can become difficult to find a certain piece of code. Following the example of the <a href="http://drupal.org/project/omega" title="The Omega theme on Drupal.org">Omega theme</a>, I've started separating my process and preprocess functions into their own files. For example, mytheme_preprocess_node can be placed within a preprocess/node.inc file, and mytheme_process_page can be placed within process/page.inc.</p>
<p>The first step is to use the default mytheme_process() and mytheme_preprocess() functions to utilise my custom function. So within my template.php file:</p>
<pre><code class="language-php"><?php
/**
* Implements hook_preprocess().
*
* Initialises the mytheme_invoke() function for the preprocess hook.
*/
function mytheme_preprocess(&$variables, $hook) {
mytheme_invoke('preprocess', $hook, $variables);
}
/**
* Implements hook_process().
*
* Initialises the mytheme_invoke() function for the process hook.
*/
function mytheme_process(&$variables, $hook) {
mytheme_invoke('process', $hook, $variables);
}
</code></pre>
<p>Now, to write the <code>mytheme_invoke()</code> function:</p>
<pre><code class="language-php"><?php
/**
* Invokes custom process and preprocess functions.
*
* @param string $type
* The type of function we are trying to include (i.e. process or preprocess).
*
* @param array $variables
* The variables array.
*
* @param string $hook
* The name of the hook.
*
* @see mytheme_preprocess()
* @see mytheme_process()
*/
function mytheme_invoke($type, $hook, &$variables) {
global $theme_key;
// The name of the function to look for (e.g. mytheme_process_node).
$function = $theme_key . '_' . $type . '_' . $hook;
// If the function doesn't exist within template.php, look for the
// appropriate include file.
if (!function_exists($function)) {
// The file to search for (e.g. process/node.inc).
$file = drupal_get_path('theme', $theme_key) . '/' . $type . '/' . $type . '-' . str_replace('_', '-', $hook) . '.inc';
// If the file exists, include it.
if (is_file($file)) {
include($file);
}
}
// Try to call the function again.
if (function_exists($function)) {
$function($variables);
}
}
</code></pre>
<p>As <code>mytheme_invoke()</code> checks to see if the function already exists before searching for checking the include files, I could still add the functions into template.php as normal and this would override any corresponding include file.</p>
<p class="tags">
Tags:
<a href="https://www.oliverdavies.uk/blog/tags/drupal">drupal</a>, <a href="https://www.oliverdavies.uk/blog/tags/code">code</a>, <a href="https://www.oliverdavies.uk/blog/tags/theming">theming</a>, <a href="https://www.oliverdavies.uk/blog/tags/preprocessing">preprocessing</a> </p>
<div class="post-pager is-flex">
<div class="is-half">
<a href="/blog/2012/05/23/writing-info-file-drupal-7-theme">
« Writing a .info file for a Drupal 7 theme
</a>
</div>
<div class="is-half text-right">
<a href="/blog/2012/07/12/my-new-drupal-modules">
My new Drupal modules »
</a>
</div>
</div>
<div class="about-author">
<h2>About the Author</h2>
<img src="//www.oliverdavies.uk/assets/images/me-precedent.jpg" alt="Picture of Oliver" class="img-circle">
<p>Oliver Davies is a Web Developer, System Administrator and Drupal specialist based in the UK. He is a Senior Developer at <a href="https://microserve.io">Microserve</a> and also provides freelance consultancy services for Drupal websites, PHP applications and Linux servers.</p>
</div>
</main>
<div class="col-md-3">
<div class="panel badges text-center">
<a class="badge--da-member" href="https://assoc.drupal.org/membership" title="I’m a Drupal Association member.">
<img
src="//www.oliverdavies.uk/assets/images/da-individual-member.png"
alt="Drupal Association Individual Member"
width="152"
>
</a>
<a href="http://drupalcores.com/#opdavies">
<img
alt="I built Drupal 8 with hand holding a wrench on blue background"
src="//www.oliverdavies.uk/assets/images/drupal-8.jpg"
/>
</a>
<img
src="//www.oliverdavies.uk/assets/images/badges/acquia-certified-developer-drupal-8.png"
alt="Acquia Certified Developer - Drupal 8 Exam Badge"
height="147" width="147"
/>
<a href="http://conference.phpnw.org.uk/phpnw17">
<img src="//www.oliverdavies.uk/assets/images/badges/phpnw17.png" alt="">
</a>
</div>
<div class="availability panel panel-default">
<div class="panel-heading">Availability</div>
<div class="panel-body">
<p>
<i class="fa fa-thumbs-o-up text-warning"></i>
Currently have limited part-time capacity
</p>
<p>
<i class="fa fa-thumbs-o-down text-danger"></i>
Currently no spare full-time capacity.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="latest-posts panel panel-default">
<div class="latest-posts__heading panel-heading">Latest blog posts</div>
<ul class="list-group">
<li class="post list-group-item">
<span class="post__title">
<a href="/blog/2017/07/13/publishing-sculpin-sites-with-github-pages">
Publishing Sculpin Sites with GitHub Pages
</a>
</span> -
<span class="post__date">13th July, 2017</span>
</li>
<li class="post list-group-item">
<span class="post__title">
<a href="/blog/2017/06/09/introducing-the-drupal-meetups-twitterbot">
Introducing the Drupal Meetups Twitterbot
</a>
</span> -
<span class="post__date">9th June, 2017</span>
</li>
<li class="post list-group-item">
<span class="post__title">
<a href="/blog/2017/05/20/turning-drupal-module-into-feature">
Turning Your Custom Drupal Module into a Feature
</a>
</span> -
<span class="post__date">20th May, 2017</span>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div> </div>
<footer class="container">
<p class="copyright">
© 2010-2017 Oliver Davies. Built with <a href="https://sculpin.io">Sculpin</a>.
</p>
<div class="meetups">
<h2>Things that I organise</h2>
<ul>
<li class="meetups--drupal-bristol">
<a href="http://www.drupalbristol.org.uk" title="Drupal Bristol">
<img
src="//www.oliverdavies.uk/assets/images/meetups/drupal-bristol.jpeg"
alt="Drupal Bristol logo"
>
</a>
</li>
<li class="meetups--drupalcamp-bristol">
<a href="http://www.drupalcampbristol.co.uk" title="DrupalCamp Bristol">
<img
src="//www.oliverdavies.uk/assets/images/meetups/drupalcamp-bristol.png"
alt="DrupalCamp Bristol logo"
>
</a>
</li>
<li class="meetups--phpsw">
<a href="http://phpsw.uk" title="PHPSW">
<img
src="//www.oliverdavies.uk/assets/images/meetups/phpsw.jpeg"
alt="PHPSW logo"
>
</a>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</footer>
<script src="https://www.oliverdavies.uk/assets/js/site.js"></script>
<script>(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'UA-11967257-1', 'auto'); ga('send', 'pageview');</script>
</body>
</html>