Rendering theme_item_list items

Question

My module provides a simple block which needs to contain an unordered list with some images. From a block function, I am returning a renderable array:

$block['content'] = array(
    'list' => array(
        '#theme' => 'item_list',
        '#type' => 'ul',
        '#attributes' => array('class' => 'foo1'),
        '#items' => array(
          /* ...  what should go here? */
        ),
    ),
);

I would like to have some renderable arrays as items in the item list, but I seem to be unable to insert any arrays into the #items array.

The Drupal 7 theme_item_list API docs says:

items: An array of items to be displayed in the list. If an item is a string, then it is used as is. If an item is an array, then the "data" element of the array is used as the contents of the list item. If an item is an array with a "children" element, those children are displayed in a nested list. All other elements are treated as attributes of the list item element.

I tried using both "data" and "children" elements, but I get either empty <li>'s or there is a word Array inside them.

What is the proper way to do this? Is theme_item_list the right/up-to-date solution?

Answer 1

Something like this:

foreach ($images as $image) {

  // New array for readability
  $options = array(
    'path' => $image->url,
    'alt' => $image->alt,
  );

  // Push the image tag onto the items array
  $block['content']['list']['#items'][] = theme('image', $options);
}

Answer 2

I ran into this exact same problem. From what I can tell reading the source code for theme_item_list() it can't use renderable arrays as items for the list. I ended up passing the renderable array with all the images to my own theme function to output the list. You can basically take your current code and change the #theme property to your custom theme function and add your renderable arrays as children of your list array. To make your function easier, you can add the <li> and </li> tags as #prefix and #suffix respectively to your image render arrays and call drupal_render_children() on your array, then you just wrap it in a <ul> and your good.

Answer 3

I'm using following code and it render's the list after an ajax call

$test = array("type"=>"ol","items"=>array('data'=>'1'),'attributes'=>array());
$commands[] = ajax_command_replace('#item-'.$ot->nid,theme_item_list($test));

main difference is the "#", if you read the code of the function at Drupal API function theme_item_list, you'll see there are no hashes for the variables

    function theme_item_list($variables) {
        $items = $variables ['items'];
        $title = $variables ['title'];
        $type = $variables ['type'];
        $attributes = $variables ['attributes'];
    ... }