views_code

Views Code

A developer utility module that lets you use Views as a query builder for custom code. Create a view with the Views UI, add a "Code" display, and execute it programmatically to get raw PHP arrays, JSON, JSONL, or delimited text (CSV/TSV) — no rendered markup, no HTTP response, no route.

The Problem

Drupal developers frequently need structured data from the database. The standard approaches all have trade-offs:

Approach Speed Output Works in code? Site builder configurable? Entity Query + Entity::load() Slow (full entity load) Entity objects Yes No Views Fast (SQL) Rendered HTML No (needs page/block) Yes Views Data Export Fast (SQL) CSV/JSON/XML files Sort of (HTTP) Yes Direct DB queries Fastest Raw arrays Yes No Views Code Fast (SQL) Arrays / JSON / CSV Yes Yes

Views Code bridges the gap: you get the speed of a SQL query, the flexibility of the Views UI (filters, sorts, relationships, contextual filters — all configurable by site builders), and clean data output ready for use in your code.

Quick Start

1. Add a Code display to any view
2. Add the fields you want as data columns
3. Configure filters, sorts, and contextual filters as needed
4. Execute in your code:

$data = \Drupal::service('views_code.manager')->execute('my_view', 'code_1');
// Returns:
// [
//   ['title' => 'Hello World', 'nid' => '1', 'status' => '1'],
//   ['title' => 'Another Post', 'nid' => '2', 'status' => '0'],
// ]

Service API

All methods are available via the views_code.manager service (Drupal\views_code\ViewsCodeManager):

// Dependency injection (recommended).
use Drupal\views_code\ViewsCodeManager;

class MyService {
  public function __construct(
    protected readonly ViewsCodeManager $viewsCode,
  ) {}

  public function getArticles(): array {
    return $this->viewsCode->execute('articles', 'code_1');
  }
}

Available Methods

Method Returns Description execute() array PHP array of rows (with optional limit/offset) json() string JSON string jsonl() string JSON Lines (one object per line) delimited() string CSV/TSV/pipe-delimited text render() array|string Uses display's configured format first() ?array First row or NULL pluck() array Flat array of one column count() int Row count

Pagination

// Limit and offset.
$page1 = $manager->execute('my_view', 'code_1', [], [], 25, 0);
$page2 = $manager->execute('my_view', 'code_1', [], [], 25, 25);

// Batch processing.
$offset = 0;
do {
  $batch = $manager->execute('my_view', 'code_1', [], [], 500, $offset);
  foreach ($batch as $row) { /* process */ }
  $offset += 500;
} while (count($batch) === 500);

Performance (Raw Values Mode)

Enable Raw Values in the style settings to bypass the field rendering pipeline. Benchmarked with 10,000 nodes and 9 fields:

Method Cold Cached Memory Entity Query + loadMultiple 2.14s — 272 MB Views Code (rendered) 16.23s 12.81s 39 MB Views Code (raw) 4.56s 1.58s 6 MB Direct DB query 0.04s — 12 MB

Style Plugin Options

• Output Format — PHP Array, JSON, JSONL, or Delimited (CSV/TSV/pipe)
• Raw Values (Fast Mode) — Bypass field rendering for maximum performance
• Delimited Settings — Configurable delimiter, enclosure, and header row
• Processing — Strip HTML, trim whitespace, decode HTML entities

Drush Commands

# Table output (default).
drush vce my_view code_1

# JSON output.
drush vce my_view code_1 --format=json

# JSON Lines.
drush vce my_view code_1 --format=jsonl

# CSV/delimited.
drush vce my_view code_1 --format=delimited

# With contextual filters.
drush vce my_view code_1 Singer --format=json

# Write to file.
drush vce my_view code_1 --format=json --output-file=/tmp/data.json

# Count results.
drush vcc my_view code_1

Real-World Use Cases

• Queue workers — Fetch items to process without entity loading overhead
• API controllers — Return JSON responses backed by configurable Views queries
• Migrations — Use pluck() to gather related entity IDs
• Data exports — Generate CSV/JSON files via Drush or cron
• Block plugins — Render data lists with minimal memory usage
• Batch processing — Process large datasets in chunks with limit/offset

Hooks

hook_views_code_data_alter() — Alter collected data before it's returned to calling code. See views_code.api.php for documentation.

Example Module

Enable views_code_example for a working demo with a users view and block plugin:

drush en views_code_example

Credits

This module was developed with assistance from Anthropic Claude Opus 4.6.