Bootstrap from external script

Question

I am trying to create Drupal entity instances from an external script that is not part of Drupal or a Drupal module.

For Drupal 7 there was drupal_bootstrap to load the required Drupal dependencies. However, after a long search all I found for Drupal 8 was a note that drupal_bootstrap is deprecated for Drupal 8.

And indeed, I get a

Call to undefined function drupal_bootstrap()

when I try to call it after including as in

define('DRUPAL_ROOT', __DIR__ .'/../drupal');
require_once DRUPAL_ROOT . '/core/vendor/autoload.php';
require_once DRUPAL_ROOT . '/core/includes/bootstrap.inc';
drupal_bootstrap(DRUPAL_BOOTSTRAP_FULL);

So how can I use the Drupal 8 API from an outside script?!

Answer 1

For current version of drupal 8.x:

define('DRUPAL_DIR', '/usr/share/nginx/html');
use Drupal\Core\DrupalKernel;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;
require_once DRUPAL_DIR . '/core/includes/database.inc';
require_once DRUPAL_DIR . '/core/includes/schema.inc';
// Specify relative path to the drupal root.
$autoloader = require_once DRUPAL_DIR . '/autoload.php';

$request = Request::createFromGlobals();

// Bootstrap drupal to different levels
$kernel = DrupalKernel::createFromRequest($request, $autoloader, 'prod');
$kernel->boot();
$kernel->prepareLegacyRequest($request);

$em = $kernel->getContainer()->get('entity.manager');

$entity = $em->getStorage('node')->create(
        array(
          'type' => "article",
          'title'=> "test entity",
          'body' => "body body body",
        ));

$entity->save();

Answer 2

I finally ended up with this code. It has some ugly extra includes but at least it works:

define('DRUPAL_DIR', __DIR__ .'/../drupal');

use Drupal\Core\DrupalKernel;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;

$autoloader = require_once DRUPAL_DIR . '/autoload.php';
$request = Request::createFromGlobals();
$kernel = DrupalKernel::createFromRequest($request, $autoloader, 'prod');
$kernel->boot();

require_once DRUPAL_DIR . '/core/includes/database.inc';
require_once DRUPAL_DIR . '/core/includes/schema.inc';


$em = $kernel->getContainer()->get('entity.manager');

$entity = $em->getStorage('my_entity')->create(array(
        'id' => "116",
        'name' => "test entity",
));
$entity->save();

Answer 3

Firstly: Always look for change notices. You can find them here: https://www.drupal.org/list-changes

Here's the main one dealing with drupal_bootstrap(): https://www.drupal.org/node/2275139

Have a look at Drupal 8's front controller (index.php).

You make an instance of the kernel and then have it handle requests.

But since you only want to poke entities into it, you won't handle requests. You just need to bootstrap the kernel and then use the various services to add your entities. The list of services is in core/core.services.yml and is quite huge. You might look for entity_manager.

Also, D8 has a RESTful API built in, so you might just be able to let D8 do all the work while you ping it over http.

Answer 4

You can use the following to bootstrap Drupal 8 from an external script to query the database:

use Drupal\Core\DrupalKernel;
use Drupal\Core\Site\Settings;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;

define('DRUPAL_DIR', __DIR__ .'/../drupal');

// Bootstrap
$autoloader = require DRUPAL_DIR . '/autoload.php';
require_once DRUPAL_DIR . '/core/includes/bootstrap.inc';
require_once DRUPAL_DIR . '/core/modules/node/node.module'; // necessary when saving nodes 
$request = Request::createFromGlobals();
Settings::initialize(dirname(dirname(DRUPAL_DIR)), DrupalKernel::findSitePath($request), $autoloader);
$kernel = DrupalKernel::createFromRequest($request, $autoloader, 'prod')->boot();

$em = $kernel->getContainer()->get('entity.manager');
$node_storage = $em->getStorage('node');
// ...

Answer 5

To bootstrap Drupal 8 from an external script, I would use the following code, similar to the code used in the authorize.php file.

use Drupal\Core\DrupalKernel;
use Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Exception\HttpExceptionInterface;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;

// Change the directory to the Drupal root.
chdir('the Drupal root directory');
$autoloader = (require_once 'autoload.php');

try {
  $request = Request::createFromGlobals();
  $kernel = DrupalKernel::createFromRequest($request, $autoloader, 'prod');
  $kernel->boot();
  $kernel->preHandle($request);

  // Ensure the request includes the session if appropriate.
  if (PHP_SAPI !== 'cli') {
    $request->setSession($kernel->getContainer()->get('session'));
  }
  
  // Your code.

} catch (HttpExceptionInterface $e) {
  $response = new Response('', $e->getStatusCode());
  $response->prepare($request)->send();
  exit;
}

The database.inc file contains only deprecated functions, and it should not be used. The schema.inc file isn't necessary to run queries on entities.

To be able to query node entities, the code needs to load the System and the Node modules.

\Drupal::moduleHandler()->addModule('system', 'core/modules/system');
\Drupal::moduleHandler()->addModule('node', 'core/modules/node');
\Drupal::moduleHandler()->load('system');
\Drupal::moduleHandler()->load('node');