How can I override the string programmatically in forum topic list?

Question

I am using the Forum module in Drupal 7. I want to change "Topic" with "foo", for example, in the General discussion forum page.

 

Where did I search for this

1. I did check the template in the forum module file and for this page it is forum-topic-list.tpl.php. There I found that, it is printed by following code,

   <thead>
       <tr><?php print $header; ?></tr>
   </thead> 
   

   And in the description, the following statement has been provided.

   Available variables:

   • $header: The table header. This is pre-generated with click-sorting information. If you need to change this, see template_preprocess_forum_topic_list().

   Hence, there is nothing called "Topic" which I can just change as this header coming from the $header.

   Now, I did check template_preprocess_forum_topic_list() but it does not have provision to Change "Topic" string.

2. Lastly, I did check the forum.module where I found the following function starting at line 914.

    function forum_get_topics($tid, $sortby, $forum_per_page) {
      global $user, $forum_topic_list_header;
   
      $forum_topic_list_header = array(
        NULL,
        array('data' => t('Topic'), 'field' => 'f.title'),
        array('data' => t('Replies'), 'field' => 'f.comment_count'),
        array('data' => t('Last reply'), 'field' => 'f.last_comment_timestamp'),
     );
   

   Now, in the above function you can see t('Topic'). I could simply replace it with t('foo'), but I think this is not the right way.

Any suggestion, how can I override this? Thanks.

Answer 1

If you check the code in template_preprocess_forum_topic_list(), you can see the $header is built with the global variable $forum_topic_list_header. It is possible to override it.

Most of the code here is copy from template_preprocess_forum_topic_list(). Only the part of code for building $header is needed.

/**
 * Implements hook_preprocess_forum_topic_list().
 */
function mymodule_preprocess_forum_topic_list(&$variables) {
  global $forum_topic_list_header;
  $forum_topic_list_header[1]['data'] = t('foo'); // Change "Topic" string

  // Create the tablesorting header.
  $ts = tablesort_init($forum_topic_list_header);
  $header = '';
  foreach ($forum_topic_list_header as $cell) {
    $cell = tablesort_header($cell, $forum_topic_list_header, $ts);
    $header .= _theme_table_cell($cell, TRUE);
  }
  $variables['header'] = $header;
}

Answer 2

You could do it using the String Overrides module.

Provides a quick and easy way to replace any text on the site.