I have a custom field called phone_number for the user. I need to retrieve the data in it from the database and use it to call other functions. I've looked through the Field API and I can't find the specific function. I read somewhere in the Field Attach API that most of the functions there take $entity as a variable but none of the functions there gives me what I need. Please help.
3 Answers
There are two solutions: use Entity API (http://drupal.org/project/entity) and create an object wrapper around the entity and just $phone = $wrapper->phone_field.
Or use the field_extract module (http://drupal.org/project/1158878) which provides two functions for extracting data from Field API fields.
Or third, code it yourself, but you don't want to do that.
(I wrote the field_extract module so I am biased.)
Use Field data extraction API module to accomplish your job of field data extraction.
As per the documentation, you have to write this in yourmodule
$phonenumbers = field_extract_values('node', $node, 'phone_number');
$result = someCustomFunction($phonenumbers);
function someCustomFunction($user_phonenumbers){
// Do something here and return value
}
The entities already loads a field data. if you have attached some fields to user you can use this as $user->myfield but sometimes in my practice field data has not appered. In that case you can load a entity load functions like node_load() or user_load()
