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Creating content

Note

Creating most objects will be impossible for an anonymous user. Make sure to authenticate as a user with sufficient permissions.

Creating Content item draft

Value objects such as Content items are read-only, so to create or modify them you need to use structs.

ContentService::newContentCreateStruct returns a new ContentCreateStruct object.

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//...
use eZ\Publish\API\Repository\ContentService;
use eZ\Publish\API\Repository\ContentTypeService;
use eZ\Publish\API\Repository\LocationService;

class CreateContentCommand extends Command
{
    //...
    protected function execute(InputInterface $input, OutputInterface $output)
    {
        $parentLocationId = $input->getArgument('parentLocationId');
        $contentTypeIdentifier = $input->getArgument('contentType');
        $title = $input->getArgument('title');

        try {
            $contentType = $this->contentTypeService->loadContentTypeByIdentifier($contentTypeIdentifier);
            $contentCreateStruct = $this->contentService->newContentCreateStruct($contentType, 'eng-GB');
            $contentCreateStruct->setField('title', $title);
            $locationCreateStruct = $this->locationService->newLocationCreateStruct($parentLocationId);

            $draft = $this->contentService->createContent($contentCreateStruct, [$locationCreateStruct]);

            $output->writeln("Created a draft of " . $contentType->getName() . " with name " . $draft->getName());

        } catch //..
    }
}

This command creates a draft using ContentService::createContent (line 21). This method must receive a ContentCreateStruct and an array of Location structs.

ContentCreateStruct (which extends ContentStruct) is created through ContentService::newContentCreateStruct (line 17), which receives the Content Type and the primary language for the Content item. For information about translating a Content item into other languages, see Translating content.

ContentStruct::setField (line 18) enables you to define the Field values. When the Field accepts a simple value, you can provide it directly, as in the example above. For some Field Types, for example images, you need to provide an instance of a Value type.

Creating an image

Image Field Type requires an instance of its Value type, which you must provide to the ContentStruct::setField method. Therefore, when creating a Content item of the Image type (or any other Content Type with an image Field Type), the ContentCreateStruct is slightly more complex than in the previous example:

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$file = '/path/to/image.png';
$name = 'Image name';

$contentType = $this->contentTypeService->loadContentTypeByIdentifier('image');
$contentCreateStruct = $this->contentService->newContentCreateStruct($contentType, 'eng-GB');
$contentCreateStruct->setField('name', $name);
$imageValue = new \eZ\Publish\Core\FieldType\Image\Value(
    array(
        'path' => $file,
        'fileSize' => filesize($file),
        'fileName' => basename($file),
        'alternativeText' => $name
    )
);
$contentCreateStruct->setField('image', $imageValue);

Value of the Image Field Type contains the path to the image file, as well as other basic information based on the input file.

Creating content with RichText

The RichText Field accepts values in a custom flavor of Docbook format. For example, to add a simple RichText paragraph, provide the following as input:

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<section xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:ezxhtml="http://ez.no/xmlns/ezpublish/docbook/xhtml" xmlns:ezcustom="http://ez.no/xmlns/ezpublish/docbook/custom" version="5.0-variant ezpublish-1.0"><para>Description of your Content item.</para></section>

To learn more about the format and how it represents different elements of rich text, see RichText Field Type reference.

Publishing a draft

ContentService::createContent creates a Content with only one draft version. To publish it, use ContentService::publishVersion. This method must get the VersionInfo object of a draft version.

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$content = $this->contentService->publishVersion($draft->versionInfo);

Updating content

To update an existing Content item, you need to prepare a ContentUpdateStruct and pass it to ContentService::updateContent. This method works on a draft, so to publish your changes you need to use ContentService::publishVersion as well:

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try {
    $contentDraft = $this->contentService->createContentDraft($contentInfo);
    $newName = 'New content name';

    $contentUpdateStruct = $this->contentService->newContentUpdateStruct();
    $contentUpdateStruct->initialLanguageCode = 'eng-GB';
    $contentUpdateStruct->setField('name', $newName);

    $contentDraft = $this->contentService->updateContent($contentDraft->versionInfo, $contentUpdateStruct);
    $this->contentService->publishVersion($contentDraft->versionInfo);

} catch //...

Translating content

Content translations are created per version. By default every version contains all existing translations.

To translate a Content item to a new language, you need to update it and provide a new initialLanguageCode:

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$contentDraft = $this->contentService->createContentDraft($contentInfo);
$newLanguage = 'ger-DE';
$translatedName = 'Name in German';

$contentUpdateStruct = $this->contentService->newContentUpdateStruct();
$contentUpdateStruct->initialLanguageCode = $newLanguage;
$contentUpdateStruct->setField('name', $translatedName);

$contentDraft = $this->contentService->updateContent($contentDraft->versionInfo, $contentUpdateStruct);
$this->contentService->publishVersion($contentDraft->versionInfo);

You can also update content in multiple languages at once using the setField method's third argument. Only one language can still be set as a version's initial language:

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$anotherLanguagee = 'fre-FR';
$newNameInAnotherLanguage = "Name in French";

$contentUpdateStruct = $this->contentService->newContentUpdateStruct();
$contentUpdateStruct->initialLanguageCode = $newLanguage;
$contentUpdateStruct->setField('name', $newName);
$contentUpdateStruct->setField('name', $newNameInAnotherLanguage, $anotherLanguage);

Deleting a translation

You can delete a single translation from a Content item's version using ContentService::deleteTranslationFromDraft. The method must be provided with a VersionInfo object and the code of the language to delete:

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$this->contentService->deleteTranslationFromDraft($versionInfo, $language);