Abstract

In this post, we describe some of the issues facing large or complex software projects using Drupal's CCK content type extension facilities. We then propose a remedy in the form of CoCKTaiL, a high-level language for CCK types and associated UI elements and relations. Tools and potential applications will be described in future work.

Introduction

Drupal's Content Construction Kit (CCK) is a powerful feature, much loved by Drupal developers, who use it to rapidly define data types and relations for applications. Using a UI, developers can easily create new content types by specifying fields, UI widgets, relations, and more.

The ability to interactively create new types and supporting UI's is a great timesaver in the early stages of many Drupal development projects.

For larger projects, however, the nature of the design and implementation process for CCK types leads to difficulties in evolving and maintaining projects which include CCK components, and these difficulties contribute to the lifecycle cost of large Drupal applications.

The CoCKTaiL grammar

In my last article I gave some examples and discussed the movtivation for CoCKTaiL, a Drupal CCK type language. I promised that I would describe the grammer I have been working on and say a few words about the tools I have been using.

I should begin by saying that this is very much a work in progress, so what you see here should not be regarded as a specification, or any kind of promise of the final shape of things to come. Rather, it is an invitation to join in the party and help to bring this tool into being. I welcome any comments, suggestions, and help with development, testing, and documentation. In particular, if you have thoughts on how the grammar itself could be changed to make it simpler, or otherwise better, I'd love your input.

Without further ado, then, here is the grammar (at the current moment) of CoCKTaiL. The following is the output of the relatively new lemon parser-generator, about which we shall say more just a bit later. Note: the numbers at the start of each line are not part of the output; they have been added to allow reference to particular lines in the following discussion.

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