How to add a menu to Drupal with all external links from module code?

Question

I am writing a module that gets data from a couple sources, mostly XML, and then creates a nested array of values, such as "Title" and "URL"/link.

I'd like to create a new menu and then loop through my nested array and for each entry create a new menu item or child menu item, passing the title and URL to Drupal's menu system. I know that I can create menus with menu_save and items with hook_menu but how to create a new menu that has all external URLs?

Here is a part of the data:

Array
(
    [8CB0A2C5DC3B19401323F1A3F22D5769] => Array
        (
            [id] => 8CB0A2C5DC3B19401323F1A3F22D5769
            [parentId] => CA4CBBBB070F043ACF7FB35FE3FD1081
            [level] => 1
            [link] => http://externallink.com/fjdsklafjdkl
            [title] => Foo
            [orderWeight] => 1
            [children] => Array
                (
                    [259D3A1F1BCB8D601B13742603415970] => Array
                        (
                            [id] => 259D3A1F1BCB8D601B13742603415970
                            [parentId] => 8CB0A2C5DC3B19401323F1A3F22D5769
                            [level] => 2
                            [link] => http://externallink.com/hi
                            [title] => FooFooFoo
                            [orderWeight] => -3
                            [children] => Array
                                (
                                    [23C7938348994922AB879B87A85567DF] => Array
                                        (
                                            [id] => 23C7938348994922AB879B87A85567DF
                                            [parentId] => 259D3A1F1BCB8D601B13742603415970
                                            [level] => 3
                                            [link] => http://externallink.com?jfsdk
                                            [title] => FooFooFooFooFooFoo
                                            [orderWeight] => -1
                                        )

                                    [993EC027EC1342E39F48A30E754621AA] => Array
                                        (
                                            [id] => 993EC027EC1342E39F48A30E754621AA
                                            [parentId] => 259D3A1F1BCB8D601B13742603415970
                                            [level] => 3
                                            [link] => http://externallink.com
                                            [title] => FooFooFooFooFoo
                                            [orderWeight] => 1
                                        )
                                  )
                            )
                      )
                )
          [B7D67ECD8DD382E2A9F6E8F8149011E4] => Array
              (
                  [id] => B7D67ECD8DD382E2A9F6E8F8149011E4
                  [parentId] => CA4CBBBB070F043ACF7FB35FE3FD1081
                  [level] => 1
                  [link] => http://externallink.com
                  [title] => FooFooFoo
                  [orderWeight] => 3
                  [children] => Array
                      (
                          [B18FA5C86281B72BB9914EC541216F21] => Array
                              (
                                  [id] => B18FA5C86281B72BB9914EC541216F21
                                  [parentId] => B7D67ECD8DD382E2A9F6E8F8149011E4
                                  [level] => 2
                                  [link] => http://externallink.com
                                  [title] => Foo Foo Foo
                                  [orderWeight] => 8
                                  [children] => Array
                                      (
                                          [C20086F4FDF627499800D60391C384E3] => Array
                                              (
                                                  [id] => C20086F4FDF627499800D60391C384E3
                                                  [parentId] => B18FA5C86281B72BB9914EC541216F21
                                                  [level] => 3
                                                  [link] => http://externallink.com60391C384E3
                                                  [title] => Foo Foo
                                                  [orderWeight] => 9
                                              )

                                          [E5F00486FC054E78B68A996B30DAC89C] => Array
                                              (
                                                  [id] => E5F00486FC054E78B68A996B30DAC89C
                                                  [parentId] => B18FA5C86281B72BB9914EC541216F21
                                                  [level] => 3
                                                  [link] => http://externallink.commmm
                                                  [title] => Foo
                                                  [orderWeight] => 26
                                              )
                                        )
                                  )
                            )
                      )
)

Answer 1

You can create menu programmatically, using menu_save function and after that add links to this menu using menu_link_save function.