How to properly alter the output for fields of type file?

Question

I have a file upload field which's format is set to generic file. It prints the following markup:

<div class="content">
  <span class="file">
    <img class="file-icon" alt="" title="application/msword" src="project/modules/file/icons/x-office-document.png">
    <a href="urltofile.doc" type="application/msword; length=22016" title="file.doc">Lorem ipsum</a>
  </span>
  <span class="file">
    ...
  </span>
</div>

But I'd rather not show the img at all, alter url text, something similar like this:

<div class="content">

  <span class="file maybe-some-custom-classes">
    <a href="urltofile.doc">$filename</a>
    <span>$description text of this field</span>
  </span>

</div>

What hooks would I have to use for this? And why is this so hard to find on the docs?!

Answer 1

I'm guessing a bit here as I can't see what you have installed/configured...

The file formatter function is file_field_formatter_view(), and the only formatter which has an image attached to it runs through theme_file_link(). I would assume that's where the markup you're referring to comes from.

You can override that in your theme:

function MYTHEME_file_link($vars) {
  ...
}

Or, if you can get away without having to reproduce the function, just preprocess is:

function MYTHEME_preprocess_file_link(&$vars){ 
  ...
}

Answer 2

If it is a file field, not an image field, then it shouldn't be necessary to alter the template, but instead change the display configuration. See the attached screenshots.

Or am I misunderstanding your question?

Which then renders like this:

Update: Sorry, misunderstood the question, you don't want the icon in front, didn't catch that.