Logging and Mailing

In the preceding chapter, we learned how to do some of the more common things most Drupal 8 module developers will have to know how to do, starting with the basics, that is, creating a Drupal module.

In this chapter, we will take things further and cover some other important tasks that a developer will have to perform.

• We will take a look at how logging works in Drupal 8. In doing so, we will cover some examples by expanding on our Hello World module.
• We will look at the Mail API in Drupal 8, namely, how we can send emails with the default setup (PHP mail). However, more than that, I will show you how to create your own email system to integrate with your (perhaps external) mail service; remember plugins? This will be yet another good example of using a plugin to extend existing capabilities.
• At the end of the chapter, we will also look at the Drupal 8 token system. We'll do so in the context of us being able to replace certain tokens with contextual data so that the emails we send out are a bit more dynamic.

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to add logging to your Drupal 8 module and feel comfortable sending emails programmatically. Additionally, you'll understand how tokens work, and as a bonus, see how you can define your own tokens.