How do you hook into a path being created via pathauto?

Question

I can't seem to make hook_pathauto_alias_alter() get called in my custom module, in either 1.x or 2.x. I'm not certain, but I'm not clear if this hook is even in pathauto 1.x.

I am trying to hook into a Pathauto alias right before it's saved, so I can make some changes to the path (remove certain words). How do you do this? Is there another method besides a hook in the Pathauto module?

I have a module that let's the user enter in a list of words they want to filter from nodes; I would prefer not to enter it in two places.

Answer 1

The UI has this built in as it happens, if you visit http://mysite.com/admin/build/path/pathauto and look in the "General Settings" fieldset you'll find a textbox containing a list of strings to remove from aliases:

hook_pathauto_alias_alter is definitely the right way to do it; it's available in both the 1.x and 2.x branches. Have you run any debug code to see if the hook is actually being called? And did you clear the caches? Hook implementations are cached (in Drupal 7 anyway; I can't remember if they are in Drupal 6 or not).

In case you're still wondering most modules that declare hooks come with a MODULENAME.api.php file which lists those hooks and how to use them. In the case of pathauto the file and hook function declarations are there, but sadly there's no documentation.