echodump.module for Drupal 4.7, 5

Some of you may remember opensource.echoditto.com, EchoDitto's lately-neglected repository of free software. We've had turnover both in staff and Drupal versions since the last time we paid serious attention to it. One of the goals of this labs project is to migrate that software over.

Much of it hasn't been ported to Drupal 5 — and most of it shouldn't be. Webform makes echoinvite unncessary; askismet and the spam module encompass the capabilities of blacklist.

But we've still got a few useful tricks up our sleeves — and now have some new and improved, Drupal 4.7 and 5 versions of "classic" EchoDitto modules.

So, first up: EchoDump. This is an awfully simple module, but also an awfully useful one — at least in my experience. If you're maintaining a Drupal site for a client that expects regular reports but isn't capable of wrangling with SQL, this can greatly simplify your life. It allows you to create SQL reports that can be exposed on a granular basis to users. And it features easy exporting to Excel, making the creation of "user signups over time" graphs and the like a relatively painless process.

As you might expect, you'll want to be very careful about which users you grant the right to enter SQL.

Also, please note that although the 4.7 version has been used on production websites, I just adapted it to 5.0 for this post. Please consider it beta software, and use it with care.