How to create a new entity with default values if not passed?

Question

Hello everyone how are you?

I created a new configEntity called Modal with 3 fields:

1. Label
2. Body
3. Auto Open

To create a new Modal I'm using this code:

$modal = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getStorage('modal')->create();

$modal->setLabel('Modal Title');
$modal->setBody('Modal Content');
$modal->setAutoOpen(TRUE);
$modal->save();

OK! It works!

But now I don't want to pass "auto-open" and I this value with TRUE as default. Like this:

$modal = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getStorage('modal')->create();
        
$modal->setLabel('Modal Title');
$modal->setBody('Modal Content');
$modal->save();

Note that there is no "Auto-Open" and it inserts a new Modal with "auto-open" = FALSE

My goal is; if you don't pass "auto-open" this field is filled with TRUE by default.

Do you know how can we do this? 🤔

Thank you so much, everyone

Answer 1

For entities in general, set default values by adding preCreate() to your entity class:

  /**
   * {@inheritdoc}
   */
  public static function preCreate(EntityStorageInterface $storage_controller, array &$values) {
    parent::preCreate($storage_controller, $values);
    $values += [
      'auto_open' => TRUE,
    ];
  }

---

In this specific case, define a class property with the same name as the field, which defaults to TRUE:

  /**
   * Auto Open.
   *
   * @var bool
   */
  protected $auto_open = TRUE;