Drupal 7 Module Development

Chapter 1
The following are a few of the features of this module:
• Functions used for dumping objects and arrays into formatted Drupal output
• Tools for analyzing database usage and performance
• A theme tool which indicates (graphically) which elements of a page were
themed by which functions or templates
• A content generator for quickly populating your site with testing content
Drush (the Drupal shell)
Sometimes it is much easier to run some tasks with a single command in a console.
Drush provides a command-line Drupal interface. It can be used to execute tasks
with a few keystrokes at the console: http://drupal.org/project/drush
When developing, we often have to clear caches, run specific tasks, or deploy data
to a remote server. Drush can help accomplish tasks like this.
Coder
The Coder module provides two big features:
• It can examine code for compliance against the Drupal coding standards
• It can automatically convert modules from one version of Drupal to another:
http://drupal.org/project/coder
For those new to Drupal, it is nice to be able to have a module automatically evaluate
whether or not new code follows the existing standards.
Summary
This chapter has been an overview of Drupal for developers. We saw what
technologies Drupal uses. We looked at Drupal's architecture. We took a cursory
glance at several prominent subsystems of Drupal's. We also got a feel of which
developer-oriented tools are to be used while working with Drupal.
Starting in the next chapter, we will be working with code. In fact, each of the
subsequent chapters will focus on practical aspects of working with Drupal. Coming
up next is an introduction to the block system, where we will write our first module.
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