Modifying a DCA

I've done quite a bit of modifying DCAs in the past and I've generally gone by the rule that if I want to modify a DCA I need to add a file with the dca name in a directory that will appear after the existing DCA.

Is there any way to dynamically modify the DCA at any point?
Ie if I had files in modules/aaa to modify files in modules/backend ?

You might want to make sure that folder comes alphabetically after "backend" (since modules are loaded in alphabetical order). If you put it at the end (e.g. "modules/z_aaa/"), you'll have free reign over dynamically changing the DCA without worrying about other modules coming along and overwriting your changes.

You can use the "loadDataContainer" hook (http://www.contao.org/hooks.html#loadDataContainer).

What you'd do is check the first parameter that is passed against a list of changes you want to make, e.g.

Code:

---

if ($strName === 'tl_content')

---

And then make your changes directly to the data container array, e.g.

Code:

---

unset($GLOBALS['TL_DCA']['tl_content']['list']['operations']['show']);

---

The "if" statement isn't technically necessary for it to work, but it will allow you to make a change only when you need to, and to only do it once per page load.

As an additional optimization, you may also want to check against "$this->Config->getActiveModules()" to only change when a module is active. But this doesn't apply to your specific example (since you can't disable "backend" in the settings).

Hope this helps.

I'm trying to get away from using files to modify DCAs but rather do it in code execution, will give the hook a quick try and see if it works.

Peter have a look at formAuto extension:

Code:

---

$GLOBALS['TL_DCA']['tl_form_auto'] = array
(

        // Config
        'config' => array
        (
                'dataContainer'              => 'DynamicTable',
                'ptable'                      => 'tl_form',
                'switchToEdit'                => false,
                'enableVersioning'            => false,
                'oncreate_callback'                                                => array
                        (
                                array('FormAuto', 'initializeFormAuto'),
                        )
        )
);

---

With DynamicTable your are able to define dynamic DCA