Creating extensions for custom tables

Question

we have some custom tables and in the menu, Support -> Developer -> Api Explorer v4, currently those custom tables are not available. Since we are new to this, in order for those custom tables to appear, we need to create our own extensions, install it then we can use it thru the APi Explorer v4, is it correct? Please give your suggestions. Thanks

Answer 1

It sounds like what you are asking about are Custom Field Groups.

A Custom Field Group is generally not accessible from the API as an entity. Instead, you access the Custom Fields within the Custom Field Group on the relevant entity (e.g. if you have a Custom Field Group for Contacts called mygroup and a Custom Field within it called myfield, you can access mygroup.myfield on the Contact entity).

The only exception to this is Custom Field Groups that allow multiple values, which is only possible for Contacts. For these, the Group is accessible as an API Entity.

Answer 2

If you have database tables you created outside of CiviCRM, they can't be exposed to API4. API4 relies on metadata stored in the DAO file for the entity, which you don't have. To rectify this, you should use civix to generate an extension, to create an XML representation of your data, and to generate the DAO boilerplate.

You should instead then export table, remove it, and install the extension. This will install the newly-defined table. If it doesn't exactly match the old table, uninstall and try again until it does. Then you can reimport the table to restore your data (if there was no data in the table this is unncecessary).

Then, finally, you can place a file in your extension at Civi/Api4/Yourentity.php that reads:

<?php

namespace Civi\Api4;

/**
 * Yourentitiy
 *
 * @searchable secondary
 * @since 5.65
 * @package Civi\Api4
 */
class Yourentity extends Generic\DAOEntity {

}

Clear cache, and it should be in API4.