How do I render nodes, now that node_view() has been deprecated?

Question

In Drupal 7 I frequently use node_view() for rendering nodes (using view modes) in blocks or pages as follows:

$nids = array(123,456,789);
$nodes = node_load_multiple($nids);
foreach ($nodes as $node) {
  $node_view = node_view($node, 'teaser');
  $output .= drupal_render($node_view);
}
$build['nodes']['#markup'] = $output;
return $build;

node_view()/entity_view() has been deprecated and replaced by a view builder as explained in change record Entities are now rendered by a view builder . The information is not detailed enough for me to be able to figure out how to achieve the same result.

How can you render nodes in Drupal 8 so that the output can be used in the render array of a block or page?

Answer 1

The answer given by Berdir uses entityManager, which has been deprecated in favor of more specific services. This is the code I currently use.

$nid = 1;
$entity_type = 'node';
$view_mode = 'teaser';

$view_builder = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getViewBuilder($entity_type);
$storage = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getStorage($entity_type);
$node = $storage->load($nid);
$build = $view_builder->view($node, $view_mode);
$output = render($build);

This code is a little more verbose than some might like; you could reduce it down to a couple lines if you really want more brevity by chaining together some methods.

$nid = 1;
$entity_type = 'node';
$view_mode = 'teaser';

$node = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getStorage($entity_type)->load($nid);
$output = render(\Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getViewBuilder($entity_type)->view($node, $view_mode));

Answer 2

The most important part is to stop rendering yourself. You can return render arrays almost everywhere and you should do it. Combining strings like that together doesn't work anymore.

All you need is this:

$nodes = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getStorage('node')->loadMultiple($nids);
// Or a use the static loadMultiple method on the entity class:
$nodes = \Drupal\node\Entity\Node::loadMultiple($nids);

// And then you can view/build them all together:
$build = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getViewBuilder('node')->viewMultiple($nodes, 'teaser');

Answer 3

entity_view() will be removed before Drupal 9.0.0. You could use it in Drupal 8, but if you want to write since now code that (for that part) will not change for Drupal 9, you can use the following code instead of entity_view().

$render_controller = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getViewBuilder($entity->getEntityTypeId());
$render_output = $render_controller->view($entity, $view_mode, $langcode);

Essentially, that is the code used from entity_view(), after I replaced the reference to another deprecated method that function was using. In fact, the documentation for Drupal::entityManager() says:

In Drupal 8.0.0 and will be removed before Drupal 9.0.0. Use \Drupal::entityTypeManager() instead in most cases. If the needed method is not on \Drupal\Core\Entity\EntityTypeManagerInterface, see the deprecated \Drupal\Core\Entity\EntityManager to find the correct interface or service.

If entity_view() will be changed before being deprecated, you can still visit its documentation page to see the actual (and updated) code the function uses.

Answer 4

This did work for me (perfect for PHPUnit tests with Drupal test traits - https://gitlab.com/weitzman/drupal-test-traits):

$nid = 3139;
$entity_type = 'node';
$view_mode = 'bs_full_guest';

$view_builder = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getViewBuilder($entity_type);
$storage = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getStorage($entity_type);
$node = $storage->load($nid);
$build = $view_builder->view($node, $view_mode);
$output = \Drupal::service('renderer')->renderRoot($build);
$nodeHtml = $output->__toString();