Files listed in .info files are not automatically included when the module is loaded; they are loaded when a module tries to create an object for a class that PHP doesn't find. In that case, a callback registered with spl_autoload_register() will check the content of the Drupal registry to find which file needs to be loaded to allow the creation of the object.
The only way to load a file containing a function is to use module_load_include().
In the specific case, where the function to load is a form validation handler (or a form submission handler) that is added to a form altered with hook_form_alter() (or hook_form_FORM_ID_alter()), I would rather keep the form handlers in the same file containing the hook implementation. Technically, the file is loaded by hook_form_alter() when it is not necessary, as the form handlers are used after the form has been submitted; so far the code worked, but it is not said that it would not work in future versions of Drupal.
Drupal 7 allows modules to implement hook_hook_info(), which is used from Drupal to know in which files the hook implementations are defined. The System module define its own implementation, which contains the following code:
function system_hook_info() {
$hooks['token_info'] = array(
'group' => 'tokens',
);
$hooks['token_info_alter'] = array(
'group' => 'tokens',
);
$hooks['tokens'] = array(
'group' => 'tokens',
);
$hooks['tokens_alter'] = array(
'group' => 'tokens',
);
return $hooks;
}
With this implementation of the hook, when Drupal is looking for the file containing the implementation of hook_tokens() for the module custom.module, it will look for the file custom.tokens.inc contained in the directory where the module custom.module is installed.
Third-party modules are allowed to implement their own hook_hook_info(), but it should be remembered they are modifying where Drupal looks for the hook implemented by other modules too, which means that changing the group for hook_token_alter() changes the files where Drupal looks for any implementation of hook_token_alter().
It is possible to use hook_hook_info() to keep some hooks in a file that is different from the module file, using an implementation similar to the following:
function custom_hook_info() {
return array(
'form_alter' => array(
'group' => 'form',
),
);
}
What I reported before is still valid; future versions of Drupal could stop working because they would not find where the form handlers are, even though they know where to find the implementation of hook_form_alter().
This is the reason I keep to put the implementation of hook_form_alter() (or hook_form_FORM_ID_alter()) and every related form handler in the module file.
