Drupal Views module not picking up tables from external database

Question

I've been following along with the Views 3 help files for Drupal 7, but I'm a bit stuck on what else I need to add to my module to make it visible to Views so I can use Views to display data in my external database.

Of course my real database has a lot more useful fields, but I was having trouble getting that to display--so I made this test database instead as a "hello world" before I try something more complex. Here's the schema.

database name = other

create table strings (
id int primary key auto_increment,
mystring varchar(50)
);

Here's my settings.php to include the database:

<?php
// ...

$databases = array (
  'default' =>
  array (
    'default' =>
    array (
      'database' => 'drupal',
      'username' => 'drupal_user',
      'password' => 'my_other_pass',
      'host' => 'localhost',
      'port' => '',
      'driver' => 'mysql',
      'prefix' => '',
    ),

    array (
        'database' => 'other',
        'username' => 'my_user',
        'password' => 'my_pass',
        'host' => 'localhost',
        'port' => '',
        'driver' => 'mysql',
        'prefix' => '',
    ),
  ),
);

//...

?>

and here's my test.views.inc file for my custom module named test (which is enabled) that describes to Drupal what the table structure of mystrings looks like.

<?php
//useful site explaining all of this: http://groups.drupal.org/node/17236
function test_views_data() {
    $data = array(
        'strings' => array(
            'table' => array(
                'group' => t('views test'),

                'base' => array(
                    'field' => 'id',
                    'title' => t("I guess node"),
                    'help' => t("help for I guess node I guess"),
                    'weight' => -10,
                    'database' => 'others',
                ),
            ),

            'id' => array(
                'title' => t('id'),
                /*'field' => array(
                    'handler' => 'views_handler_field_node',
                    'click sortable' => TRUE,
                ),*/
                'relationship' => array(
                    'label' => t("node I think"),
                    'base' => 'node',
                    'base_field => 'id',
                ),
                /*'argument' => array(
                    'handler' => 'view_handler_argument_node_nid',
                    'name field' => 'id for strings',
                    'numeric' => TRUE,
                    'validate type' => 'nid',
                ),*/

                /*'filter' => array(
                    'handler' => 'views_handler_filter_numeric',
                ),*/

                /*'sort' => array(
                    'handler' => 'views_handler_sort',
                ),*/
            ),

            'mystring' => array(
                'title' => t('mystring'),
                'field' => array(
                    'handler' => 'views_handler_field',
                    'click sortable' => TRUE,
                ),
                'filter' => array(
                    'handler' => 'views_handler_filter_string',
                ),
                'argument' => array(
                    'handler' => 'views_handler_argument_string',
                ),
                'sort' => array(
                    'handler' => 'views_handler_sort',
                ),
            ),
        ),
    );

    return $data;
}

Here's my test.module file:

<?php

function test_help($section) {
    switch($section) {
        case "admin/help#test":
        return "<p>hello from test</p>";

        case "admin/modules#description":
        return "hello from test inside the admin help thing";
    }
}

function test_page() {
    return "<p>hello from the actual test page</p>";
}

function test_views_api() {
    return array('api' => 3.0);
}

Here's the current problem: When I try and make a new view I don't see any of this information or anything related to my database and table mystrings. Does anybody know what I'm doing wrong in my custom module code / view usage? Any help is much appreciated!

Answer 1

I just set-up a basic module to test it and it works fine. The main problem I can see with your code is the settings.php file.

settings.php

<?php
$databases = array (
  'default' => array (
      'default' => array (
      'database' => 'drupaldev',
      'username' => 'drupal_user',
      'password' => '',
      'host' => 'localhost',
      'port' => '',
      'driver' => 'mysql',
      'prefix' => '',
    ),
  ),

  'testdb' => array(
    'default' => array (
      'database' => 'testdb',
      'username' => 'testdb_user',
      'password' => '',
      'host' => 'localhost',
      'port' => '',
      'driver' => 'mysql',
      'prefix' => '',
    ),
  ),
);

so_views.module

<?php

/**
 * Implements hook_views_api().
 * 
 * @return array
 */
function so_views_views_api() {
  return array(
    'api' => 3,
  );
}

/**
 * Implements hook_views_data().
 *
 * @return array
 */
function so_views_views_data() {
  return array(
    'example_table' => array(
      'table' => array(
        'group' => t('SO View Table'),
        'base' => array(
          'field' => 'nid',
          'title' => t('SO new Table'),
          'help' => t('Table contains data'),
          'weight' => -10,
          'database' => 'testdb',
        ),
        'join' => array(
          'node' => array(
            'left_field' => 'nid',
            'field' => 'nid',
          ),
        ),
      ),
      'nid' => array(
        'title' => t('Node Id'),
        'help' => t('This is the node Id'),
        'relationship' => array(
          'base' => 'node',
          'base field' => 'nid',
          'handler' => 'views_handler_relationship',
          'label' => t('Default label for the relationship'),
          'title' => t('Title shown when adding the relationship'),
          'help' => t('More information on this relationship'),
        ),
      ),
      'plain_text_field' => array(
        'title' => t('Plain text field'),
        'help' => t('Just a plain text field.'),
        'field' => array(
          'handler' => 'views_handler_field',
          'click sortable' => TRUE, // This is use by the table display plugin.
        ),
        'sort' => array(
          'handler' => 'views_handler_sort',
        ),
        'filter' => array(
          'handler' => 'views_handler_filter_string',
        ),
        'argument' => array(
          'handler' => 'views_handler_argument_string',
        ),
      ),
      'numeric_field' => array(
        'title' => t('Numeric field'),
        'help' => t('Just a numeric field.'),
        'field' => array(
          'handler' => 'views_handler_field_numeric',
          'click sortable' => TRUE,
        ),
        'filter' => array(
          'handler' => 'views_handler_filter_numeric',
        ),
        'sort' => array(
          'handler' => 'views_handler_sort',
        ),
      ),
      'boolean_field' => array(
        'title' => t('Boolean field'),
        'help' => t('Just an on/off field.'),
        'field' => array(
          'handler' => 'views_handler_field_boolean',
          'click sortable' => TRUE,
        ),
        'filter' => array(
          'handler' => 'views_handler_filter_boolean_operator',
          // Note that you can override the field-wide label:
          'label' => t('Published'),
          // This setting is used by the boolean filter handler, as possible option.
          'type' => 'yes-no',
          // use boolean_field = 1 instead of boolean_field <> 0 in WHERE statment.
          'use equal' => TRUE,
        ),
        'sort' => array(
          'handler' => 'views_handler_sort',
        ),
      ),
      'timestamp_field' => array(
        'title' => t('Timestamp field'),
        'help' => t('Just a timestamp field.'),
        'field' => array(
          'handler' => 'views_handler_field_date',
          'click sortable' => TRUE,
        ),
        'sort' => array(
          'handler' => 'views_handler_sort_date',
        ),
        'filter' => array(
          'handler' => 'views_handler_filter_date',
        ),
      ),
    ),
  );
}

All the views related code came from the docs. I would recommend installing the advanced_help module and having a look at yoursite.com/views/api-tables.

If you wanted to set this up in a different module then create an info file and the required sql can be found here