Enabling New Modules Via Update.php

01.16.2008

I work with 3 other developers, all of whom have their own local sandbox of our site. Since we're constantly adding new modules, I found a simple way to enable a new module via another module's .install file. That way, all we have to do is run update.php when we update our source tree.

Here's a simple example update function:

<?php

function some_enabled_module_update_1() { $ret = array(); switch ($GLOBALS['db_type']) { case 'mysqli': case 'mysql': //this function tells drupal to update its file directories, and insert records for any new modules it sees. module_rebuild_cache(); $ret[] = update_sql("UPDATE {system} SET status = 1 WHERE name = 'some_completely_new_module'"); break; } return $ret; } ; ?>

The major limitation of this method is that it doesn't run the new modules install file. I can live with that. It beats always bugging other developers to see if the build needs a new module enabled. I'm sure there's a workaround for that anyhow.