Batch Recompute?

I haven't got a good answer for how to do this. I think the best course would be to implement some views hooks for the epublish module.

In answer to your questions:
1. What events/actions cause the computed fields to update themselves?
A stored computed field is computed field is computed when the node is inserted or updated. A non-stored computed field is computed when the node is loaded.

2. Is there any way to do a batch recompute, where with a single click I can have all the nodes with computed fields recompute the values for those fields?
No easy way that I know of. You may be able to write a script that loads each node you want updated, then saves it (using node_load and node_save).

3. If I do not store the computed fields in the database, will I need to create placeholder fields for both the dateline and pubdate in order for them to appear in the Views module? (I suspect that the answer is yes.)
The answer is yes, sort of. Views loads things from the database itself, it doesn't call node_load. If the value isn't in the database then views won't see it. I'm not sure how you would create placeholder values that would solve this problem, since the placeholders need to be saved to the database at some point. Placeholders would need to be saved during node_save, such as when you edit and save a node.

In short it looks like your options are:
1. Write views hooks for the epublish module, or
2. Write a script which loads and saves the nodes you want updated.

"A non-stored computed field is computed when the node is loaded."

I have a question about recompute, when the node is reload?

Drupal loads a node using node_load any time that a module needs more than just the node id (nid) or title. node_load is defined in modules/node.module, and calls hook_load, and hook_nodeapi with the 'load' op. When a ckk node is being loaded, content_load gets called, and content_load calls field hooks with the 'load' op. That's the point at which a non-stored computed field is computed. At this same point a stored computed field would have been loaded from the database, rather than being computed.

Does that answer your question?

wrunt,
thanks for your reply.

I made a function that can set every computed field how long to recompute by cron.

It's useful for sometime I don't a static data save in the database, but not change every time.

delete unused dpr().

Computed values that are not stored in the database do not expose themselves to Views, so there is probably a need for a way to recalculate stored computed values (or selected ones) via cron as well.

Yes, desperately! Ideal would be a cron-based (and manually-runnable) way to update computed values that ARE stored in the database. [Hopefully the associated node(s) would NOT be marked as updated by this action.]

If this existed, Computed Field would become VERY powerful indeed, adding an unprecedented level of control to a Drupal user who cannot or chooses not to edit PHP files directly. (Personally, I want all my changes to the site, except perhaps those in .CSS files, to be "managed" -- kept in the database.)

I think the other options (which I was thinking about initially) is to compute the value at display-time, not at node-edit-time.
That way it's always current ...

Or is there another way to generate a value at node-display-time?

PS: I'm using computed_field on drupal 5

Hi all,
How could we setup a script to recompute the value and save it into the database?

Hey there,

I faced the same problem and used the following script to load and save all nodes of a certain type (in this case CCK profiles).

<?php
// This query is used to load all the nids of a specific content type into an array. Change `node_content_profile' to the name of the content type.
$query = 'SELECT nid
FROM `node_content_profile';

// Create an array to store the query info
$profilenidarray = array();
 
 //exectue the query using db abstraction stuff
$profilenidarray = db_query($query);

// For each nid this will load and then save the node
while ($nodeID = db_fetch_array($profilenidarray)){

//This time limit is important, if it is removed the query will exceed the 30sec limit.
set_time_limit(5);

$PNID = node_load($nodeID["nid"]);
node_save($PNID);

}
// Just so you know its done!
print 'done';
?>

The code can be executed from the devel box at the bottom or just paste it in a page and enable php code.

Hope this helps some ppl out.

Cheers,

Neil

Neil,

Your code worked well for me in 5.x - great job!

I think there was an extra ` in this line (corrected below):
$query = 'SELECT nid
FROM node_content_profile';

Thank you.

Closing out old Drupal 4.7 issues, as it is no longer a supported release.