Possible to save plain text value when entity reference doesn't exist?

Question

I have a user entity reference field. When I type in a name, but the entity/user doesn't exist I would like to save the name as a plain text value. Is this possible?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Instead of adding an user entity field you can create a normal text field and then use formalter function to make it an auto complete.

The steps would be as follows.

Create a custom module.

First you would need to create a menu item to get the list of users to do that you can create a hook_menu function

function module_name_menu() {  
  $items['userlist/autocomplete'] = array(
    'page callback' => '_module_name_autocomplete',
    'access arguments' => array('you can define the permissions here'),
    'type' => MENU_CALLBACK
  );
  return $items;
}

The next step would be to create the call back function.

function _module_name_autocomplete($string) {
  $matches = array();

  // Some fantasy DB table which holds cities
  $query = db_select('users', 'u');

  // Select rows that match the string
  $return = $query
    ->fields('u', array('name'))
    ->condition('c.name', '%' . db_like($string) . '%', 'LIKE')
    ->range(0, 10)
    ->execute();

  // add matches to $matches  
  foreach ($return as $row) {
    $matches[$row->name] = check_plain($row->name);
  }

  // return for JS
  drupal_json_output($matches);
}

The last step would be to create a form alter function to

function module_name_form_page_node_form_alter(&$form, &$form_state, $form_id) {
  $form['field_name']['#autocomplete_path'] = 'userlist/autocomplete';
}

This would change your textfield into an autocomplete field. you would also be able to enter any other name as well.