This small drupal 7 tip will help you get out values from entity objects, like nodes, users, taxonomy, ...
You probably seen this data structure when loading nodes:
<?php
$entity ->fieldname[language][delta] = [item];
?>
You could loop through it but this will not take into account the language. There is a function that takes care of extracting data so you dont have to worry about the data structures language:
<?php
$items = field_get_items('node', $node, 'field_yourfield', $node->language);
?>
You ll find more here:
http://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/modules--field--field.module/group/field/7 [4]
EDIT: This is also very a very handy function found on drupal7ish his blog http://drupal7ish.blogspot.com/2011/03/getting-field-data-out-of-entitie... [5]
<?php
/**
* Returns field values as actual entities where possible,
* also allows selection of individual items to be returned
*/
function field_fetch_field_values($entity_type, $entity, $field_name, $get_delta = NULL, $get_key = NULL) {
$values = array();
if (isset($entity->$field_name) && !empty($entity->$field_name)) {
foreach (field_get_items($entity_type, $entity, $field_name) as $delta => $item) {
$value = $item;
$keys = array_keys($item);
if (count($keys)==1) {
$key = $keys[0];
switch ($key) {
case 'nid':
$value = array_shift(entity_load('node', array($item[$key])));
break;
case 'uid':
$value = array_shift(entity_load('user', array($item[$key])));
break;
case 'tid':
$value = array_shift(entity_load('taxonomy_term', array($item[$key])));
break;
case 'vid':
$value = array_shift(entity_load('taxonomy_vocabulary', array($item[$key])));
break;
case 'value':
$value = $item['value'];
break;
}
}
else {
if ($get_key && isset($item[$get_key])) {
$value = $item[$get_key];
}
elseif (array_key_exists('value', $item)) {
$value = isset($item['safe_value']) ? $item['safe_value'] : $item['value'];
}
}
$values[$delta] = $value;
}
}
if (is_numeric($get_delta)) {
return isset($values[$get_delta]) ? $values[$get_delta] : NULL;
}
return $values;
}
?>
Links
[1] https://dominiquedecooman.com/blog-topics/fields-0
[2] https://dominiquedecooman.com/blog-topics/entities
[3] https://dominiquedecooman.com/blog-topics/d7tip
[4] http://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/modules--field--field.module/group/field/7
[5] http://drupal7ish.blogspot.com/2011/03/getting-field-data-out-of-entities.html