Option group based on query results

[jlwood]

My Problem: Some of my civicrm contacts have publications in a bibliography database, I want to add a custom field that allows me to set their "author id" in the civicrm contcact record. Since new author id's are added frequently, the select box opitons in the civicrm field need to be based on a query of the current author data instead of a static option group. I know what the query should look like, but how do a create an "Option group" based on a query instead of a static list?

[Coleman Watts]

With http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/hook_civicrm_customFieldOptions

[jlwood]

That looks like just what I was searching for, Thanks! It seemed like something that must exist, but I wasn't finding the right hook.

[jlwood]

Just a quick follow-up and question. The hook populated my select box just as needed, but it appears as though the function runs everytime the data is displayed or queried not just when the field is editable. I'm creating a Drupal view where I need the underlying numeric value, not the label, but the view only returns the label result. I can see in the data that the correct value is present, and that each time the query runs, the hook code is executed. Is this behavior by design?

[Coleman Watts]

There is no other way to fetch the option list without executing your code, thus it runs every time.

[Coleman Watts]

You could implement some sort of caching in your hook code if you want to be more efficient.

[jlwood]

That's what I was beginning to surmise. None of the variable's passed into hook_customFieldOptions have any information about the context ($fieldID, $options, and $detailedFormat). Is there a 'best practices' method for detecting whether or not the field is being displayed as an editable value?

[Coleman Watts]

I wouldn't try to get too clever if I were you. Simplest solution would be to stash the values in a static variable at the top of your hook fn and return it if it's already populated. That way your query only runs once per request, which should give you perfectly good performance.

[jlwood]

I fine tuned it by using Drupal's context module and creating a "no_auth_labels" context, then wrapping the relevant code in this:

Code: [Select]

$contexts = context_active_contexts();
if (!array_key_exists('no_auth_labels', $contexts)) :
    /*  All the good stuff goes in here;*/
endif;
Thanks for all your help