[TYPO3-dev] FAL in an Extbase 6.0 extension... but how?!

[Anders Gissel]

Hey guys,


I have been trying to figure out how to integrate the fancy new File 
Abstraction Layer in a new Extbase-extension I'm working on, since I 
want the extension itself to be as modern as possible, and since 
t3lib_basicFileFunctions is marked as deprecated, I seem to have little 
choice but to either backport the file functions I need myself into a 
utility in my extension, and stick with the good old 
/uploads/tx_whatever/ format, or to make the switch to FAL. And 
obviously the latter would be preferable and vaguely more future proof.
However, what little documentation exists on FAL is sorely lacking, at 
best. There seem to be no coding examples, outside of the basic "this is 
how you display all files in a filemount"-example found in the original 
FAL-presentation slides, and they don't cover the integration of FAL in 
a domain model object at all.

So. Basically, I have a model object that needs a single reference to a 
file (an image, if you must know). I spent hours trying every 
permutation of \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Resource\* for my file object I could 
think of, but at best I got nothing, at worst I got exceptions from the 
SQL-layer. And while I got the TCA to sort-of work (I got it to present 
me with a buggy imitation of the file selector so prominently on display 
in the tt_content editor), I couldn't for the life of me get the stored 
data out of the model object in the frontend. Again, exceptions all 
around, with little indication of what actually went wrong.

So I'm pleading with you – because surely someone smarter than I (that's 
practically most of the planet) must have made an extension with a 
working FAL-integration, right? Can anyone point me to a project on TER 
or GitHub that I can dissect and learn how to go about this? Or, if such 
a project is in the works but hasn't been released yet, help me the hard 
way by answering these questions:


1) How on earth does one define a field in the domain model, so that it 
accepts, stores and returns a proper file reference?

2) How should the TCA for such a field be defined, so that it can be 
safely used in the backend? The extension builder's solution results 
in... well, nothing.

3) Bonus question: how does one go about storing a new file in a FAL 
storage through the frontend? Let's assume I have all the file data 
readily at hand, and I just want to store it in a pre-defined file 
storage. But how?


Once I've figured these things out, I'll happily write proper code 
examples and publish them online – if nothing else on my own website, 
but I'll be happy to add it to an official Wiki or... whatever. Google 
is of no help; I'm probably not the first to run into this problem, and 
I certainly won't be the last.

Here's hoping. Because surely it's just the documentation that's lacking 
and me being stupid, and not, as some evil tongues will have me believe, 
that the TCA is currently not able to handle FAL references inside an 
extension? Right?


Best regards,
Anders Gissel
Denmarkistan