Changing title of node when saving

Question

Whenever an user saves a node I want to prefix it with table autoincrement-id so that the id is unique.

So if the title of node is "xyz" then it should be saved as unique id "299999-xyz". Ideally this id should be the node-id which is unique but it may not be possible to know the actual id until the node is saved in the table.

What is the best way to accomplish it?

I'm thinking of changing the title in the form validate function. This id can be numeric time() value.

*PS:*I'll have tons of such nodes so when linking them from other nodes (node-reference) this id will uniquely identify such nodes in "autocomplete textbox" in node forms.

Answer 1

I suspect you can do this via a hook_nodeapi when $op == "presave".

function mymodule_nodeapi (&$node, $op, $a3 = NULL, $a4 = NULL)
{
    if ($op == "presave") {
      $unique = mymodule_get_unique_number();
      $title = preg_replace("/^\d+\-/", "", $node->title);
      $node->title = $unique . "-" . $title;
    }
}

The trick is to tweak the PCRE pattern to extract the unique number from the $title. Putting in better delimiyters would help. You could always save off the original title in a CCK field that only uid==1 can edit, and build the node title from that.

EDIT: Just re-read the question. This will change the title every time you save. Not sure if you want that or not. You can edit the logic to only do this once, based on the preg results.

Answer 2

Use the module "Automatic Nodetitles". This allows you to use tokens on the title field. Once enabled you can set any pattern for the title. Set your pattern on /admin/content/node-type/YOURCONTENTTYPE to "[nid] - [title]" for example. Already existing nodes can be updated automatically.

Answer 3

This should also be possible using php by invoking hook_insert. This hook is called after the node is saved and the nid is available, so you can then make changes and resave the node.