---
title: "Creating Nodes with Attachments Programmatically · Appnovation"
url: "https://www.appnovation.com/insights/creating-nodes-attachments-programmatically"
description: "How to programmatically create Drupal nodes with file attachments, with a sample migration script you can adapt for your own content."
---

Article

# Creating Nodes with Attachments Programmatically

[![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/ey850001/production/86e3d5924e4bfabe671e1dd9adeaf528d5ea749e-68x68.png?w=68&auto=format) dliau dliau Developer](/people/dliau-dliau.md) Mar 16, 2011  
 2 min read 

![Appnovation Blog Default Header](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/ey850001/production/9efe1c26d9584ecfb3dfef5a63e698bf4567d305-1440x600.jpg?w=1400&auto=format) 

There are many situations where programmatically creating a node is necessary. I'm sure we've all used this method at least once and each time may call for a slightly different configuration. Recently, I wrote a script to migrate a fairly small number of nodes (around 150). Along with the standard title, body, status and fields, I also had to migrate terms and attachments. Terms are fairly easy, but I've never needed to migrate attachments until now. I found a site which was very helpful with [programmatically including attachments (opens in new window)](http://workingdirectory.net/posts/2009/attach-file-to-node-drupal-6/) to a node. This is not to attach file to a file field, but to attach files as an attachment which uses the core Upload module. The main chunk of code is below:

foreach ($files as $file) {   $file\_obj = new stdClass();   $file\_obj->filename = $file->filename;   $file\_obj->filepath = $file->filepath;   $file\_obj->filemime = $file->filemime;   $file\_obj->filesize = $file->filesize;   $file\_obj->filesource = $file->filename;      // You can change this to the UID you want   $file\_obj->uid = $file->uid;   $file\_obj->status = $file->status;   $file\_obj->timestamp = $file->timestamp;   $file\_obj->list = 1;   $file\_obj->new = true;      // Save file to files table   drupal\_write\_record('files', $file\_obj);      // Attach the file object to your node   $node->files\[$file\_obj->fid\] = $file\_obj; } 

First thing we need to do is create a new file object. Fill in the file name, path, mime, size and source variables. In my case, I had these variables available from the old database, so I needed to save the new object into the new files table to get a file ID. These variables can also be retrieved by [file\_save\_upload (opens in new window)](http://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/includes--file.inc/function/file_save_upload/6) if you're uploading a new file. Afterwards, each file ID needs to be set as an array in the node object. Then node\_save to commit the changes. Saved attachments are written into the upload table where they can reference the file ID and node ID.

[![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/ey850001/production/86e3d5924e4bfabe671e1dd9adeaf528d5ea749e-68x68.png?w=68&auto=format) dliau dliau Developer · Appnovation](/people/dliau-dliau.md) 

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