Backup And Restore Modules

The backup and restore process for modules is actually pretty well documented:

• Backup
• Restore

There are a few potential pitfalls however.

If you want to backup the files associated with the module instance, you have to use the annotate_files function. For instance:

$rainmaker->annotate_files('mod_rainmaker', 'rainmaker_docs', 'id');

The 3rd argument of the function is documented as 'elementname'. This suggests you can name the resulting xml element whatever you want. But that is not actually the case: you should use the table column that contains the id which is also used in the mdl_files.itemid column for that particular module.

For instance, if your rainmaker module's instance id is stored in the mdl_rainmaker table, and that is used to identify the file, then mdl_rainmaker.id is the column name you need.

To restore files associated with your module's instance, use the after_execute function. There, make a call to add_related_files:

protected function after_execute() {
    $this->add_related_files($component = 'mod_rainmaker', $filearea = 'rainmaker_docs', $mappingitemname = 'rainmaker');
}

Here, the $mappingitemname refers to the xml element containing the id attribute that you're interested in.

When you duplicate an existing module and replace everything to the new modulename, you have to make sure the definition is uppercase.

public static function define_decode_rules() {
	$rules = array();

	$rules[] = new restore_decode_rule('FREETRAININGVIEWBYID',
			'/mod/freetraining/view.php?id=$1', 'course_module');
	$rules[] = new restore_decode_rule('FREETRAININGVIEWBYQ',
			'/mod/freetraining/view.php?q=$1', 'freetraining');
	$rules[] = new restore_decode_rule('FREETRAININGINDEX',
			'/mod/freetraining/index.php?id=$1', 'course');

	return $rules;
}

Take the FREETRAININGVIEWBYID as example, eveything has to be in UPPERCASE, otherwise the backup/duplicate function will not work.