Updates an instance of a field.

Parameters

$instance: An associative array representing an instance structure. The following required array elements specify which field instance is being updated:

• entity_type: The type of the entity the field is attached to.
• bundle: The bundle this field belongs to.
• field_name: The name of an existing field.

The other array elements represent properties of the instance, and all properties must be specified or their default values will be used (except internal-use properties, which are assigned automatically). To avoid losing the previously stored properties of the instance when making a change, first load the instance with field_info_instance(), then override the values you want to override, and finally save using this function. Example:

// Fetch an instance info array.
$instance_info = field_info_instance($entity_type, $field_name, $bundle_name);
// Change a single property in the instance definition.
$instance_info['required'] = TRUE;
// Write the changed definition back.
field_update_instance($instance_info);

Throws

FieldException

See also

field_info_instance()

field_create_instance()

Related topics

23 calls to field_update_instance()

FieldAttachOtherTestCase::testFieldAttachPrepareViewMultiple in modules/field/tests/field.test

Tests the 'multiple entity' behavior of field_attach_prepare_view().

FieldAttachOtherTestCase::testFieldAttachView in modules/field/tests/field.test

Test field_attach_view() and field_attach_prepare_view().

FieldAttachStorageTestCase::testFieldAttachSaveLoad in modules/field/tests/field.test

Check field values insert, update and load.

FieldAttachStorageTestCase::testFieldAttachSaveMissingDataDefaultValue in modules/field/tests/field.test

Test insert with missing or NULL fields, with default value.

FieldInstanceCrudTestCase::testUpdateFieldInstance in modules/field/tests/field.test

Test the update of a field instance.

... See full list

File

modules/field/field.crud.inc, line 568

Code

function field_update_instance($instance) {
    // Check that the specified field exists.
    $field = field_read_field($instance['field_name']);
    if (empty($field)) {
        throw new FieldException(t('Attempt to update an instance of a nonexistent field @field.', array(
            '@field' => $instance['field_name'],
        )));
    }
    // Check that the field instance exists (even if it is inactive, since we
    // want to be able to replace inactive widgets with new ones).
    $prior_instance = field_read_instance($instance['entity_type'], $instance['field_name'], $instance['bundle'], array(
        'include_inactive' => TRUE,
    ));
    if (empty($prior_instance)) {
        throw new FieldException(t("Attempt to update an instance of field @field on bundle @bundle that doesn't exist.", array(
            '@field' => $instance['field_name'],
            '@bundle' => $instance['bundle'],
        )));
    }
    $instance['id'] = $prior_instance['id'];
    $instance['field_id'] = $prior_instance['field_id'];
    _field_write_instance($instance, TRUE);
    // Clear caches.
    field_cache_clear();
    module_invoke_all('field_update_instance', $instance, $prior_instance);
}

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