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You can order Extended Long Term Support (ELTS) here: TYPO3 ELTS.
Storing the Changes¶
There are various ways to store changes to $GLOBALS['TCA']
. They
depend - partly - on what you are trying to achieve and - a lot -
on the version of TYPO3 CMS which you are targeting.
There are two main ways to store your changes to the TCA: inside an extension
or straight in the typo3conf
folder. Both are described below in
more details.
Storing in Extensions¶
The advantage of putting your changes inside an extension is that they are nicely packaged in a self-contained entity which can be easily deployed on multiple servers.
The drawback is that the extension loading order must be finely controlled. However, in case you are modifying core TCA, you usually don't have to worry about that. Since custom extensions are always loaded after the core's TCA, changes from custom extensions will usually take effect without any special measures.
Important
If your extension modifies another extension, you actively need to make sure your extension is loaded after the extension you are modifying. This can be achieved by registering that other extension as a dependency (or suggestion) of yours. See the description of constraints in Core APIs.
Loading order also matters if you have multiple extensions overriding the same field, probably even contradicting each other.
For more information about an extension's structure, please refer to the extension architecture chapter in Core APIs.
Storing in the Overrides Folder¶
Since TYPO3 CMS 6.2 (6.2.1 to be precise) changes to $GLOBALS['TCA']
must be stored inside a folder called Configuration/TCA/Overrides
with one file per modified table. These files are named along the pattern
<tablename>.php
.
Thus if you want to customize the TCA of tx_foo_domain_model_bar
,
you'd create the file Configuration/TCA/Overrides/tx_foo_domain_model_bar.php
.
The advantage of this method is that all such changes are incorporated into
$GLOBALS['TCA']
before it is cached. This is thus far more efficient.
Important
Be aware that you cannot extend the TCA of extensions if it was configured within
its ext_tables.php
file, usually containing the "ctrl" section
referencing a "dynamicConfigFile". Please ask the extension author to switch
to the Configuration/TCA/<tablename>.php
setup.
Important
Only TCA-related changes should go into Configuration/TCA/Overrides
files. Some API calls may be okay as long as they also manipulate only
$GLOBALS['TCA']
. For example, it is fine to register a plugin with
\TYPO3\CMS\Core\Utility\ExtensionManagementUtility::addPlugin()
in
Configuration/TCA/Overrides/tt_content.php
because that API call only
modifies $GLOBALS['TCA']
for table "tt_content".
Storing in ext_tables.php Files¶
Until TYPO3 CMS 6.1 (still supported for 6.2) changes to $GLOBALS['TCA']
are packaged
into an extension's ext_tables.php
file. This is strongly discouraged in more recent
versions of TYPO3 CMS.
Nowadays the only usecase for TCA changes in ext_tables.php
is to override TCA definitions
done in the ext_tables.php
of a legacy extension. TCA overrides cannot be used in this case
until the author of the legacy extension migrates his code.
Changing the TCA "on the Fly"¶
It is also possible to perform some special manipulations on
$GLOBALS['TCA']
right before it is stored into cache, thanks to the
tcaIsBeingBuilt
signal. This signal was introduced in
TYPO3 CMS 6.2.1.