Re: [development] new dev q: are mysql queries possible within drupal?

[Andrew Berry]

On 16/11/2009 10:29 AM, Jennifer Hodgdon wrote:
a) Add a "dummy" placeholder menu item to the menu, within the admin 
interface, where you want your query results to appear.
b) In your theme, make a custom theme function for theme('menu_item') 
that will detect the dummy item and do your query, and otherwise just 
call theme_menu_item(). 
I don't understand this approach. Why can't hook_menu and a custom load 
function be used to do this, while separating the theme from the data?

function mymodule_menu() {
  $items['customers/%customer'] = array(
    // Insert items here as per hook_menu docs.
  );
}

function customer_load($customer_id) {
  db_set_active('customerdb');
  // It's probably better to select fields, not * - there was 
discussion about this
  // previously I think.
  $customer = db_fetch_object("SELECT * FROM {customer_data} WHERE 
customer_id = %d", $customer_id);
  db_set_active('default');
  return $customer;
}