Array and object inspection / The template language / Templates / 3.9 / Technical manual / eZ Publish / Documentation

By using the "attribute" template operator, it is possible to quickly inspect the contents of arrays and template objects. The operator creates an overview of available keys, attribute names and/or methods in an object or an array. By default, only the array keys and object attribute names (also called identifiers) are shown. By passing "show" as the first parameter, the operator will also display the values. The second parameter can be used to control the number of levels/children that will be explored (the default setting is 2). The following example demonstrates how the operator can be used to inspect the contents of an "ezcontentobjecttreenode" object.

Attribute	Type	Value
node_id	string	2
parent_node_id	string	1
main_node_id	string	2
contentobject_id	string	1
contentobject_version	string	10
contentobject_is_published	string	1
depth	string	1
sort_field	string	8
sort_order	string	1
priority	string
modified_subnode	string	1108118324
path_string	string	'/1/2/'
path_identification_string	string	''
is_hidden	string
is_invisible	string
name	string	'eZ publish'
data_map	array	Array(6)
object	object[ezcontentobject]	Object
subtree	array	Array(114)
children	array	Array(44)
children_count	string	44
contentobject_version_object	object[ezcontentobjectversion]	Object
sort_array	array	Array(1)
can_read	boolean	true
can_create	boolean	false
can_edit	boolean	false
can_hide	boolean	false
can_remove	boolean	false
can_move	boolean	false
creator	object[ezcontentobject]	Object
path	array	Array(0)
path_array	array	Array(2)
parent	object[ezcontentobjecttreenode]	Object
url	string	''
url_alias	string	''
class_identifier	string	'folder'
class_name	string	'Folder'
hidden_invisible_string	string	'-/-'
hidden_status_string	string	'Visible'

As the output shows, there is a lot of information that can be extracted from a node object. In addition to strings and numbers the object also consists of other objects. For example, the creator of the node is a "ezcontentobject" object. The creator object can be further inspected by doing the following:

Attribute	Type	Value
id	string	14
section_id	string	2
owner_id	string	14
contentclass_id	string	4
name	string	'Administrator User'
is_published	string
published	string	1033920830
modified	string	1033920830
current_version	string	1
status	string	1
current	object[ezcontentobjectversion]	Object
versions	array	Array(1)
author_array	array	Array(1)
class_name	string	'User'
content_class	object[ezcontentclass]	Object
contentobject_attributes	array	Array(5)
owner	object[ezcontentobject]	Object
related_contentobject_array	array	Array(0)
related_contentobject_count	string
reverse_related_contentobject_array	array	Array(0)
reverse_related_contentobject_count	string
can_read	boolean	false
can_create	boolean	false
can_create_class_list	array	Array(0)
can_edit	boolean	false
can_translate	boolean	false
can_remove	boolean	false
can_move	boolean	false
data_map	array	Array(5)
main_parent_node_id	string	13
assigned_nodes	array	Array(1)
parent_nodes	array	Array(1)
main_node_id	string	15
main_node	object[ezcontentobjecttreenode]	Object
default_language	string	'eng-GB'
content_action_list	boolean	false
class_identifier	string	'user'
class_group_id_list	array	Array(1)
name	string	'Administrator User'
match_ingroup_id_list	boolean	false

Again, this object consists of a lot of information. As mentioned above, the "attribute" operator can be used on both objects and arrays. The following example demonstrates how to inspect the "data_map" array (which reveals the object's attributes) of the node's creator object.

Attribute	Type	Value
first_name	object[ezcontentobjectattribute]	Object
last_name	object[ezcontentobjectattribute]	Object
user_account	object[ezcontentobjectattribute]	Object
signature	object[ezcontentobjectattribute]	Object
image	object[ezcontentobjectattribute]	Object