Drupal・3 min read・Last update on November 8, 2019

# Porting hook\_init() to Drupal8

 

 

 

 ![Porting hook_init() to Drupal8](/sites/default/files/remediation-media/64e5ddecd8b51449bff05add_blog-featured-image.webp) 

 



 

   Table of contents  - [What hook\_init() does?](#what-hook-init-does)
- [How does it work in Drupal 8 now?](#how-does-it-work-in-drupal-8-now)
- [How to create an Event Subscriber?](#how-to-create-an-event-subscriber)
- [Conclusion](#conclusion)
 
  

 

D8 beta is launched and its time to port modules from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8. One of the very widely used hooks hook\_init() has been removed from Drupal 8. This has been replaced in favor of Symfony Kernel and events. Hook\_init() was was a system level hook defined at core module system/system.api.php.

### What hook\_init() does?

**‍**  
This hook is run at the beginning of the page request. It is typically used to set up global parameters that are needed later in the request. When this hook is called, the theme and all modules are already loaded in memory.

### How does it work in Drupal 8 now?

**‍**  
Drupal 8 has adopted symfony as a part of its core. It uses Symfony kernel and events to do the same now. List of kernel events available in Drupal 8 are as follows:

- **KernelEvents::CONTROLLER**  
     The CONTROLLER event occurs once a controller was found for handling a request.
- **KernelEvents::EXCEPTION**  
     The EXCEPTION event occurs when an uncaught exception appears.
- **KernelEvents::FINISH\_REQUEST**   
     The FINISH\_REQUEST event occurs when a response was generated for a request.
- **KernelEvents::REQUEST**   
     The REQUEST event occurs at the very beginning of request dispatching.
- **KernelEvents::RESPONSE**  
     The RESPONSE event occurs once a response was created for replying to a request.
- **KernelEvents::TERMINATE**  
     The TERMINATE event occurs once a response was sent.
- **KernelEvents::VIEW**  
     The VIEW event occurs when the return value of a controller is not a Response instance.

Drupal 8 provides a way to subscribe to all these events and attach callbacks to be executed when these events occur. If our module needs to perform changes on the request/response object very early to the request an event subscriber should be used listening to the KernelEvents::REQUEST event. Same goes for the other events as well.

### How to create an Event Subscriber?

**‍**  
The example below shows a Drupal 7 hook\_init() implementation which appends **Access-Control-Allow-Origin** to the response headers to allow CORS(Cross Origin Resource Sharing).

 ```

mymodule.module
/**
 * Implements hook_init()
 */
function mymodule_init() {
  drupal_add_http_header('Access-Control-Allow-Origin', '*', TRUE);
}

```

#### Steps to convert hook\_init into an event subscriber in Drupal 8

- Create a new Service for Event Subscriber
- Attach a callback to the KernelEvents::RESPONSE event in Event Subscriber Class.
- Port the above code inside the attached callback function.

#### Creating a new service

**‍**  
Create a yml file named <module\_name>.services.yml as follows:

 ```

mymodule.services.yml
services:
  cors.allow_access_origin:
    class: Drupal\mymodule\EventSubscriber\mymoduleSubscriber
    tags:
      - {name: event_subscriber}

```

 **class:** defines the class implementing EventSubscriberInterface.  
**tags:** Parsing these services is an expensive task for Drupal. It parses all the services.yml files and stores the service definitions in a cached PHP file. These tags help categorize the services.

**Attach a callback to the KernelEvents::RESPONSE event**  
EventSubscriberInterface provides a static function which can be used to attach callable functions to the above mentioned kernel events as shown in the below example.

 ```

mymoduleSubscriber.inc
namespace Drupal\mymodule\EventSubscriber;
 
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\RedirectResponse;
use Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\KernelEvents;
use Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Event\FilterResponseEvent;
use Symfony\Component\EventDispatcher\EventSubscriberInterface;
use Drupal\Component\Utility\Unicode;
 
class mymoduleSubscriber implements EventSubscriberInterface {
  /**
  * {@inheritdoc}
  */
  static function getSubscribedEvents() {
    $events[KernelEvents::RESPONSE][] = array('addAccessAllowOriginHeaders');
    return $events;
  }
}

```

#### Porting the logic inside hook\_init to the callback function attached to KernelEvents::RESPONSE

‍

 ```

mymoduleSubscriber.inc
namespace Drupal\mymodule\EventSubscriber;
 
+ use ...
 
class mymoduleSubscriber implements EventSubscriberInterface {
  public function addAccessAllowOriginHeaders(FilterResponseEvent $event) {
    $response= $event->getResponse();
    $response->headers->set('Access-Control-Allow-Origin', '*');
  }
 
  /**
  * {@inheritdoc}
  */
  static function getSubscribedEvents() {
    $events[KernelEvents::RESPONSE][] = array('addAccessAllowOriginHeaders');
    return $events;
  }
}

```

**‍**‍

### Conclusion

**‍**  
In this post, we learned how to replace hook\_init() with event subscriber & how symfony kernel events play with event subscribers. We have a better understanding on how Kernel events & callbacks work in Drupal8.

Next article, we’ll have a look at how to port routing access Callbacks to Drupal 8.

 



Written by

Piyuesh Kumar

Director of Technology

 

 

 

 

 

 

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