General TCA configuration¶

Here is an example of a typical “ctrl” section syntax:

$extensionPath = \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Utility\ExtensionManagementUtility::extPath('externalimport_tut');

$GLOBALS['TCA']['tx_externalimporttut_departments'] = array(
        'ctrl' => array(
                'title' => 'LLL:EXT:externalimport_tut/locallang_db.xml:tx_externalimporttut_departments',
                ...
                'external' => array(
                        0 => array(
                                'connector' => 'csv',
                                'parameters' => array(
                                        'filename' => $extensionPath . 'res/departments.txt',
                                        'delimiter' => "\t",
                                        'text_qualifier' => '"',
                                        'skip_rows' => 1,
                                        'encoding' => 'latin1'
                                ),
                                'data' => 'array',
                                'referenceUid' => 'code',
                                'priority' => 10,
                                'description' => 'Import of all company departments'
                        )
                )
        ),
);

The external property is an indexed array. The available properties are described below.

Properties¶

Property	Data type	Scope/Step
additionalFields	string	Read data
clearCache	string	Clear cache
connector	string	Read data
customSteps	array	Any step
data	string	Read data
dataHandler	string	Handle data
description	string	Display
disabledOperations	string	Store data
disableLog	boolean	Store data
enforcePid	boolean	Store data
group	string	Sync process
minimumRecords	integer	Validate data
namespaces	array	Handle data (XML)
nodetype	string	Handle data (XML)
parameters	array	Read data
pid	integer	Store data
priority	integer	Display/automated import
referenceUid	string	Store data
useColumnIndex	string or integer	Configuration
whereClause	string	Store data

connector¶

Type

string

Description

Connector service subtype.

Must be defined only for pulling data. Leave blank for pushing data. You will need to install the relevant connector extension. Here is a list of available extensions and their corresponding types:

Type	Extension
csv	svconnector_csv
json	svconnector_json
sql	svconnector_sql
feed	svconnector_feed

Scope

Read data

parameters¶

Type

array

Description

Array of parameters that must be passed to the connector service.

Not used when pushing data.

Scope

Read data

data¶

Type: string
Description: The format in which the data is returned by the connector service. Can be either xml or array.
Scope: Read data

dataHandler¶

Type: string
Description: A class name for replacing the standard data handlers. See the Developer’s Guide for more details.
Scope: Handle data

group¶

Type: string
Description: This can be any arbitrary string of characters. All External Import configurations having the same value for the “group” property will form a group of configurations. It is then possible to execute the synchronization of all configurations in the group in one go, in order of priority. Group synchronization is available on the command line and in the Scheduler task.
Scope: Sync process

nodetype¶

Type: string
Description: Name of the reference nodes inside the XML structure, i.e. the children of these nodes correspond to the data that goes into the database fields (see also the description of the field attribute).
Scope: Handle data (XML)

referenceUid¶

Type: string
Description: Name of the column where the equivalent of a primary key for the external data is stored.

Important

This is the name of a field in the TYPO3 CMS database, not in the external data! It is the field where the reference (or primary) key of the external data is stored.
Scope: Store data

priority¶

Type

integer

Description

A level of priority for execution of the synchronization. Some tables may need to be synchronized before others if foreign relations are to be established. This gives a clue to the user and a strict order for scheduled synchronizations.

Not used when pushing data.

Scope

Display/Automated import process

pid¶

Type: string
Description: ID of the page where the imported records should be stored. Can be ignored and the general storage pid is used instead (see Configuration).
Scope: Store data

enforcePid¶

Type

boolean

Description

If this is set to true, all operations regarding existing records will be limited to records stored in the defined pid (i.e. either the above property or the general extension configuration). This has two consequences:

when checking for existing records, those records will be selected only from the defined pid.
when checking for records to delete, only records from the defined pid will be affected

This is a convenient way of protecting records from operations started from within the external import process, so that it won’t affect e.g. records created manually.

Scope

Store data

useColumnIndex¶

Type

string or integer

Description

In a basic configuration the same index must be used for the general TCA configuration and for each column configuration. With this property it is possible to use a different index for the column configurations. The “ctrl” part has to exist with its own index, but the columns may refer to another index and thus their configuration does not need to be defined. Obviously the index referred to must exist for columns.

The type may be a string or an integer, because a configuration key may also be either a string or an integer.

Scope

Configuration

customSteps¶

Type

array

Description

As explained in the process overview, the import process goes through several steps, depending on its type. This property makes it possible to register additional steps. Each step can be placed before or after any existing step (including previously registered custom steps).

The configuration is a simple array, each entry being itself an array with two properties: “class” referring to the PHP class containing the custom step code and “position” stating when the new step should happen. The syntax for position is made of the keyword before or after, followed by a colon (:) and the name of an existing step class.

Example:

'customSteps' => array(
        array(
                'class' => \Cobweb\ExternalimportTest\Step\EnhanceDataStep::class,
                'position' => 'after:' . \Cobweb\ExternalImport\Step\ValidateDataStep::class
        )
),

If any element of the custom step declaration is invalid, the step will be ignored. More information is given in the Developer’s Guide.

Scope

Any step

whereClause¶

Type: string
Description: SQL condition that will restrict the records considered during the import process. Only records matching the condition will be updated or deleted. This condition comes on top of the “enforcePid” condition, if defined.

Warning

This may cause many records to be inserted over time. Indeed if some external data is imported the first time, but then doesn’t match the whereClause condition, it will never be found for update. It will thus be inserted again and again. Whenever you make use of the whereClause property you should therefore watch for an unexpectedly high number of inserts.
Scope: Store data

additionalFields¶

Type

string

Description

Comma-separated list of fields from the external source that should be made available during the import process, but that will not be stored in the internal table.

This is usually the case for fields which you want to use in the transformation step, but that will not be stored eventually.

Scope

Read data

namespaces¶

Type

array

Description

Associative array of namespaces that can be used in XPath queries. The keys correspond to prefixes and the values to URIs. The prefixes can then be used in XPath queries.

Example

Given the following declaration:

'namespaces' => array(
   'atom' => 'http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom'
)

a Xpath query like:

atom:link

could be used. The prefixes used for XPath queries don’t need to match the prefixes used in the actual XML source. The defaut namespace has to be registered too in order for XPath queries to succeed.

Scope

Handle data (XML)

description¶

Type: string
Description: A purely descriptive piece of text, which should help you remember what this particular synchronization is all about. Particularly useful when a table is synchronized with multiple sources.
Scope: Display

disabledOperations¶

Type

string

Description

Comma-separated list of operations that should not be performed. Possible operations are insert, update and delete. This way you can block any of these operations.

insert: The operation performed when new records are found in the external source.
update: Performed when a record already exists and only its data needs to be updated.
delete: Performed when a record is in the database, but is not found in the external source anymore.

See also the column-specific property disabledOperations.

Scope

Store data

minimumRecords¶

Type: integer
Description: Minimum number of items expected in the external data. If fewer items are present, the import is aborted. This can be used – for example – to protect the existing data against deletion when the fetching of the external data failed (in which case there are no items to import).
Scope: Validate data

disableLog¶

Type: integer
Description: Set to true to disable logging by TCEmain. This setting will override the general “Disable logging” setting (see Configuration for more details).
Scope: Store data

clearCache¶

Type: string
Description: Comma-separated list of caches identifiers for caches which should be cleared at the end of the import process. See Clearing the cache.
Scope: Clear cache