Calling Drupal functions in external PHP file

Question

How can I call a Drupal function or get the global variable in a PHP file which is located under the drupal installation folder. I doing it for the first time. Are there any files I need to include in my code in order to access the Drupal function or variables?

Solution 1

Taken from the linked question in the comment above

You need to Bootstrap Drupal in the external PHP file:

/** bootstrap Drupal **/
chdir("/path/to/drupal/site/htdocs");
require_once './includes/bootstrap.inc';
drupal_bootstrap(DRUPAL_BOOTSTRAP_FULL);

Be sure to change the path to your Drupal installation, then add your code below the code posted above.

Solution 2

If the above explained example doesn't work try this:

$path = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'];
chdir($path."/drupal");
define('DRUPAL_ROOT', getcwd()); //the most important line
require_once './includes/bootstrap.inc';
drupal_bootstrap(DRUPAL_BOOTSTRAP_FULL);

Solution 3

define('DRUPAL_ROOT', getcwd());
require_once './includes/bootstrap.inc';
drupal_bootstrap(DRUPAL_BOOTSTRAP_FULL);

The above code works for me, when the script is in my Drupal root directory. This loads absolutely everything, not just Drupal core, including contributed module hooks.

Comments

[ErichBSchulz]

this looks like a hybrid of both drupal 6 and drupal 7

[Tom Fenech]

This question already has an accepted answer. If your answer is an improvement, you should add some detail explaining why.

[sandykadam]

How do we do for Drupal8?