Can Drupal change the template used based on a file extension in the url?

Question

I am using Drupal 6.16 with a number of modules installed. I was trying to find out if there is a way to change the output of a node when a different file extension is added to the url. For example:

http://example.com/drupal?q=foo/bar - returns a normal drupal node
http://example.com/drupal?q=foo/bar.xml - returns xml output of the node

Is this even possible with Drupal? Do I have to hack the core code to get this working?

Answer 1

You should not need to hack the core code. There are probably several contributed modules that can do this for you.

To output an XML version of a node, check out the Views Bonus Pack module, which extends the Views module. It has basic export capabilities, including CSV, TXT, DOC, and XML. The documentation is brief, but there is a README.txt file in the views_bonus/export/ directory that gives the basic steps for creating a feed in a view that will output XML.

You can set the path for the feed, so while I don't believe the .xml extension will work, you could set up a path with an additional component like this:

http://example.com/drupal?q=foo/bar      <-- normal output
http://example.com/drupal?q=foo/bar/xml  <-- XML output

To change the template file that is used for a node based on the path, you can use a preprocess function in your template.php file to add a template suggestion based on the path. This takes a bit more understanding of how the template files work, but ultimately you'll have more control of the output than you will with a view.

Answer 2

Here is how I fixed this.

1. Add the custom_url_rewrite_inbound function to check for incoming request ending with .xml. If it finds a request ending with .xml it strips that off, so that the correct data can be located by the rest of the drupal machinery. It also sets 'subsite_xml_request' to true so that the appropriate theme template can be used later.

   function custom_url_rewrite_inbound (&$result, $path, $path_language) {
     if(preg_match('/\.xml$/', $path)) {
       $search = preg_replace('/^(.*)\.xml$/', "$1", $path);
       if ($src = drupal_lookup_path('source', $search, $path_language)) {
         $_REQUEST['xml_request'] = true;
         $result = $src;
       }
   }
   

2. Modify the phptemplate_preprocess_page function in your template.php to add additional '-xml' templates.

   function phptemplate_preprocess_page(&$vars) {   
     if ($_REQUEST['xml_request']) {
       if (module_exists('path')) {
         $path = str_replace('/edit','',$_GET['q']);
         $alias = drupal_get_path_alias($path);
         if ($alias != $_GET['q']) {
           $template_filename = 'page';
           foreach (explode('/', $alias) as $path_part) {
             $template_filename = $template_filename . '-' . $path_part;
             $vars['template_files'][] = $template_filename . '-xml';
           }
           $vars['template_files'][] = 'page-xml';
         }
       }
     }
   }
   

3. Create the required page-xml.tpl.php