General developer forum

I agree there are totally lots of reasons to create files from strings...!

1) The context id is necessasry because your files are stored associated with a context. For example they could be associated with a course or with a block. In your case you are storing the files in the course context, which seems weird, since you're working on a block. Why not use the block context? Unless this is some kind of shared thing where there could be multiple blocks and they need to all have the same file.

2) Here is some code I wrote that you may be able to figure out another way to do what you're trying, but I'm not sure. Note that the comments etc will not make sense. Also the code is a bit weird in that it sometimes uses system context. Also the API has changed slightly since this was written (note 'component' field is missing from my code) and it doesn't run any more but I think that's just to do with extra parameters or something (sorry we are going to update this but haven't done it yet). Just hoping it might help.

/**
 * Obtains a file info array for a document file (as distinct from user file).
 * @param object $oucontent OU content object
 * @param string $path Path within area (e.g. '/')
 * @param string $name Filename
 * @return object File info object
 */
function oucontent_get_documentfile_info($oucontent, $path, $name) {
 $fileinfo = new stdClass;
 $fileinfo->filearea = 'oucontent';
 $fileinfo->itemid = $oucontent->id;
 if ($oucontent->course) {
 $cm = oucontent_get_cm($oucontent);
 $context = get_context_instance(CONTEXT_MODULE, $cm->id);
 } else {
 $context = get_context_instance(CONTEXT_SYSTEM);
 }
 $fileinfo->contextid = $context->id;
 $fileinfo->filepath = $path;
 $fileinfo->filename = $name;
 return $fileinfo;
}

/**
 * Gets a file from its file info object.
 * @param object $fileinfo File info object
 * @return stored_file Actual file
 * @throws moodle_exception If file does not exist
 */
function oucontent_get_file($fileinfo) {
 $fs = get_file_storage();
 $file = $fs->get_file($fileinfo->contextid, $fileinfo->filearea,
 $fileinfo->itemid, $fileinfo->filepath, $fileinfo->filename);
 if (!$file) {
 throw new moodle_exception('fileerror', 'oucontent', '', '',
 "{$fileinfo->contextid}, {$fileinfo->filearea}, {$fileinfo->itemid},{$fileinfo->filepath}{$fileinfo->filename}" );
 }
 return $file;
}

/**
 * Checks if a file exists from its file info object.
 * @param object $fileinfo File info object
 * @return bool True if file exists
 */
function oucontent_file_exists($fileinfo) {
 $fs = get_file_storage();
 return $fs->file_exists($fileinfo->contextid, $fileinfo->filearea,
 $fileinfo->itemid, $fileinfo->filepath, $fileinfo->filename);
}

/**
 * Saves a file in the appropriate area.
 * @param object $oucontent OU content object
 * @param string $path Path within area (e.g. '/')
 * @param string $name Filename
 * @param string $content Content to save into file
 */
function oucontent_documentfile_save($oucontent, $path, $name, $content) {
 $fs = get_file_storage();
 $fs->create_file_from_string(oucontent_get_documentfile_info(
 $oucontent, $path, $name), $content);
}

--sam