Walk

Walk provides a Craft-aware array walk method, plus some super-convenient console commands, allowing you to easily call Craft service methods on a collection of elements or values.

TL;DR.

You want to perform some action, in bulk, on a bunch of elements.

And you want to do this with several different sets of elements, and with several different bulk actions, without needing to write new code every time.

Applying a method to every item in a list is known as "walking" an array. In fact, PHP provides a method — array_walk() — to do just that.

However, PHP's array_walk method isn't aware of how Craft's components are set up, and it doesn't know anything about Elements. Walk provides a Craft-aware walk function — craftyArrayWalk() — to run a Craft component method on each item in a list.

PHP Usage

First, you need to have a callable in mind. A callable is the method that will be run on each item in the list.

A callable is specified by its name as a string. With this plugin, a callable can be:

• a method in one of Craft's native components: 'component.method'
• a method in a plugin's module components: 'plugin.component.method'
• any accessible custom function: 'myCustomMethod'
• any native PHP function, e.g. 'strtolower'

Second, you need a list of stuff (an array).

Then, just call the craftyArrayWalk() method, like this:

$success = WalkHelper::craftyArrayWalk($elements, $callable);

For example...

Before Walk, you might invoke a method on each item in a query loop, like this:

$myEntries = Entry::find()->all();

foreach ($myEntries as $entry)
{
    Craft::$app->getElements->saveElement($entry);
}

With Walk, you can program functionally, using the special Craft-aware service syntax:

WalkHelper::craftyArrayWalk($myEntries, 'elements.saveElement');

CLI Usage

For extra convenience, Walk also provides a handy command line syntax for you to trigger bulk actions — for any Element type, and any callable — via the console:

Let's say you want to re-save all your blog entries...

./craft walk entries --section=blog --limit=null elements.saveElement

If you have a custom service method, and you want to run it once on each user:

./craft walk users --limit=null myPlugin.myComponent.myMethod

What if your custom method takes an element ID rather than an element object?

./craft walk entryIds myModule.myComponent.methodThatTakesAnId

Tada!

Or, perhaps you want to get a count of elements in a criteria, without actually doing anything to them?

./craft walk countEntries --section=blog

Finally — You can use the special --asJob command option to schedule each walk step as a queue job, so you don't lock up your CLI on long-running tasks:

./craft walk entries elements.saveElement --asJob

./craft walk entryIds myModule.someComponent.aMethod --asJob

Learn more...

Check out the readme for more details. You'll find it pretty easy to copy/paste your way to success!