By drupalshrek on

Here is the error message I have:

Strict warning: Only variables should be passed by reference in LpTaxonomy->getAllTid() (line 12 of C:\Program Files\wamp\www\lingopolo\sites\all\modules\lingopolo\custom\lp_taxonomy\lp_taxonomy.module).

My code is as follows:

define('LP_TAXONOMY_RECORDING_TYPE_ALL_NAME', 'All');

class LpTaxonomy {
	
	/**
	 * Returns the taxonomy id of the "All" lesson.
	 */
	function getAllTid() {
		$all_term = array_shift(taxonomy_get_term_by_name(
			LP_TAXONOMY_RECORDING_TYPE_ALL_NAME, 'recording_type'));
		
		return $all_term->tid;
	}
	
}

As far as I can see, I'm passing strings. So why the error message?

Another question on this same code: is this the easiest/best way to avoid hard coding a particular taxonomy id? The problem is that I want to reference a taxonomy item with the term name "All" but I don't want to use the taxonomy id (which is more likely to change). Any better way to do it than the code you see?

Thanks!

⋅ Categories: Drupal 7.x

Comments

Ayesh’s picture

Ayesh commented

I'm surprised this was not obvious.
See array_unshift php.net doc: http://php.net/manual/en/function.array-shift.php

In order to pass a parameter that expects it to be by reference, you cannot use return values by other functions.

define('LP_TAXONOMY_RECORDING_TYPE_ALL_NAME', 'All');

class LpTaxonomy {
    
    /**
     * Returns the taxonomy id of the "All" lesson.
     */
    function getAllTid() {
        $term = taxonomy_get_term_by_name(
            LP_TAXONOMY_RECORDING_TYPE_ALL_NAME, 'recording_type');
        $all_term = array_shift($term);
        
        return $all_term->tid;
    }
    
}

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drupalshrek’s picture

drupalshrek commented

Thaks Ayesh. OK, I get it now. It makes sense, though it is of course unusual to have to put something into a variable rather than being able to use it directly.

By the way, for your "Drupal bad practices" I would add near the bottom something like "Not protecting a blog page against spammers being able to post whatever they like". ;-)

drupalshrek

wadmiraal’s picture

wadmiraal commented

Ayesh's answer is correct; don't worry, we all went through these kind of silly mistakes ;-).

For your second question, it's tricky. You could create an Admin UI, so the site admin can actually select the "All" term. That's probably how I would tackle it, because it is indeed a bad idea to hard code the term ID (especially if the module must be reused elsewhere) or simply rely on the term name.

Does that help?

I blog about Drupal right here

Ayesh’s picture

Ayesh commented

I didn't mean to offend him at all. I see his username frequently, and there are many contributions by him. I'm surprised this silly mistake didn't happen any sooner :)

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