General developer forum

Hello Davo,

I am experiencing the same problems as Anna is facing. Basically, I am almost done with the activity plugin that I'm developing. The challenge that I'm facing is on saving the files and then fetching it back to be displayed in the ***/mod/pluginname/view.php page. I have no clue on how I can handle this. I've read the documentation on the File API and Forms, as well as studying other moodle plugin code e.g. Video plugin, but somehow I'm coming incredibly short. I'm seeing entries in the DB, both plugin table as well as the mdl_files table. But I cant seem to be able to get the file uploaded. Please see my code and show me where I'm going wrong:

MOD_FORM.PHP

function audio_add_instance(stdClass $audio, mod_audio_mod_form $mform = null) {

    global $DB;

    $audio->timecreated = time();

    $context = context_module::instance($data->coursemodule);

    // I may have to add extra stuff in here.

    $audio->id = $DB->insert_record('audio', $audio);

    audio_grade_item_update($audio);

    return $audio->id;

}

function audio_save_draft_area_files($data) {

    $context = context_module::instance($data->coursemodule);

    if (isset($data->attachments)) {

        file_save_draft_area_files($data->attachments, $context->id, 'mod_audio', 'attachments', 0, array('subdirs' => 0, 'maxbytes' => $CFG->maxbytes, 'maxfiles' => 50));

    }

}

Here's a commented excerpt of my working code. I hope you'll find it useful.

(If you're writing your own plugin, you need to write a function called myplugin_pluginfile() for serving files to users. See:

https://docs.moodle.org/dev/File_API#Serving_files_to_users

)

// Form settings
$context = $this->page->context;
$contextid = $context->id;
$component= 'mod_scheduler';
$filearea = 'attachment';
$itemid = 0;
$options = array('subdirs' => 0, 'maxbytes' => 0, 'areamaxbytes' => 10485760, 'maxfiles' => 50,
                              'accepted_types' => array('image', 'document', 'application/pdf', 'application/zip', 'presentation',
                              'application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.template'), 'return_types'=> FILE_INTERNAL |
                              FILE_EXTERNAL);       
// Form data
$data = new stdClass();
$schedulerid = $booker->actionurl->get_param('id');
$data->id = $schedulerid;
       
// Load any preexisting files into the draftarea
file_prepare_standard_filemanager($data, 'attachment', $options, $context, $component, $filearea, $itemid);

// Initialise mform, pass on $data and $contextid
$mform_studentcomment = new scheduler_studentcomment_form($booker->actionurl, '');
$mform_studentcomment->set_data($data);
$mform_studentcomment->set_data($contextid);
     
// Check wether the mform has just been cancelled or submitted or is to be displayed
      
//If cancelled: reload page
if ($mform_studentcomment->is_cancelled()) {
    redirect($booker->actionurl);
}
       
// If submitted: get files from filemanager
if ($data = $mform_studentcomment->get_data()) {
           
    // Get the draft itemid (Files in the drag-and-drop area are automatically saved as drafts in mdl_files even before the form is submitted.)
    $itemid = file_get_submitted_draft_itemid('attachment');
           
    if ($itemid != null) {       
        $data->attachment_filemanager = $itemid;
       
        // Save draftarea content permanently
        $data = file_postupdate_standard_filemanager($data, 'attachment', $options, $context, $component, 'studentcomment',
                                                                                            $itemid);     
        // Access the content
        $fs = get_file_storage();
        $files = $fs->get_area_files($contextid, 'mod_scheduler', 'studentcomment', $itemid, $sort = "itemid, filepath, filename",
                                                        $includedirs = true, $updatedsince = 0);  
        // Create an access url for each file and save all of them in an array
        if ($files != null) {
            $url = array();
            foreach($files as $file){
                $tmp = moodle_url::make_pluginfile_url(
                        $file->get_contextid(),
                        $file->get_component(),
                        $file->get_filearea(),  // studentcomment
                        $file->get_itemid(),  
                        $file->get_filepath(),
                        $file->get_filename(),
                        false // $forcedownload
                        );
                $url[]=$tmp;
            }
            // Save the array here ...
        }  
        // reload page
        redirect($booker->actionurl);
    }
}
// If the form was neither cancelled nor submitted: Display it       
$mform_studentcomment->display();

Raymond we have the same agenda. Mine is to develop a page that will allow teachers to upload their syllabus, store the metadata into the database using a particular course module. The syllabus uploaded should be automatically positioned on Week 0 of a particular course. I can do all the positioning of the data in Week 0 as well as store metadata in correlated tables via code behind, my only problem is to save the syllabus physically to the moodledata and reflect it back to the course using FileAPI.

The reason behind why this is done on the page I had developed is so that I could trigger a field that this particular course had uploaded a syllabus. Later on, it is easy for me to generate a report of all courses who never uploaded a syllabus.