TCA definition¶

This chapter explains how to create a field that makes it possible to create relations to files based on the File Abstraction Layer (FAL).

TYPO3 CMS provides a convenient API for this. Let’s look at the TCA configuration of the “image” field of the “tt_content” table for example (with some parts skipped).

'image' => array(
        'label' => 'LLL:EXT:lang/locallang_general.xlf:LGL.images',
        'config' => \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Utility\ExtensionManagementUtility::getFileFieldTCAConfig('image', array(
                'appearance' => array(
                        'createNewRelationLinkTitle' => 'LLL:EXT:frontend/Resources/Private/Language/locallang_ttc.xlf:images.addFileReference'
                ),
                // custom configuration for displaying fields in the overlay/reference table
                // to use the imageoverlayPalette instead of the basicoverlayPalette
                'foreign_types' => array(
                        ...
                )
        ), $GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['GFX']['imagefile_ext'])
),

The API call is \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Utility\ExtensionManagementUtility::getFileFieldTCAConfig(). The first argument is the name of the current field, the second argument is an override configuration array, the third argument is the list of allowed file extensions and the fourth argument is the list of disallowed file extensions. All arguments but the first are optional.

A call to \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Utility\ExtensionManagementUtility::getFileFieldTCAConfig() will generate a standard TCA configuration for an inline-type field, with a relation to the “sys_file” table via the “sys_file_reference” table as “MM” table.

The override configuration array (the second argument) can be used to tweak this default TCA definition. Any valid property from the “config” section of inline-type fields can be used.

On the database side, the corresponding field needs just to store an integer, as it is usual for a relation field:

CREATE TABLE tt_content (
        ...
        image int(11) unsigned DEFAULT '0' NOT NULL,
        ...
);