Hi Joel,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but D7 won't allow the same field to be instantiated more than once in a bundle, which can suck if you want to use the same type of field multiple times within a given Content Type.

For example, if I create a Content Type called "Item" and a field called "icon". I can only use this icon field once for "Items". If I want each "Item" to have a color_icon field instance, a greyscale_icon field instance, and a black_and_white icon field instance, I cannot reuse that dang "icon" field. I've looked at the database structures and the Field API code, and it looks like there's no getting around this unless someone wrote a module to modify the Field UI for managing a Content Type to add a "duplicate" button for each field that would take the field instance definition with all its accompanying settings and to copy and populate a new instance as your code above suggests.

Similarly, if I wanted to do this with the field_collection field type, under development, I suppose this might require a bit more complexity unless the definitions of the embedded fields of the field_collection come along for free. I created a field_collection of 6 fields and tried to reuse it in the same content type, but was flatly rejected due to the same reason for any field.

Even though I've programmed for many years, I'm new to Drupal. If my basic assumptions are off, please let me know. I'm not so sure I want to create my first module to do something like this, but it could be fun... perhaps.

It looks like you code above creates a snippet that can pasted into one of your custom modules, but I'd prefer a more seamless method with a UI if possible.

Thoughts?

FIRST, ON SOURCE SITE:

$export_data = array();
$export_data['entity_name'] = 'user';
$export_data['bundle_name'] = 'user';
$instances = field_info_instances($export_data['entity_name'], $export_data['bundle_name']);

foreach ($instances as $field_name => $field) {
$export_data['data'][] = array(
'field' => field_info_field($field_name),
'instance' => field_info_instance($export_data['entity_name'], $field_name, $export_data['bundle_name']),
);
}
var_export($export_data);

--------------------------------
THEN ON DESTINATION SITE:

//First, ensure $import_data = pasted output

foreach ($export_data['data'] as $item) {
field_create_field($item['field']);
field_create_instance($item['instance']);
}

Hope it helps!

Thanks, that was helpful. I needed to copy a couple of field instances from one bundle to several other bundles within the same site. This is the script I ran on /devel/php:

$origin = 'article';
$bundles = array('blog', 'news');
$fields = array('field_quote', 'field_image');

foreach ($fields as $field) {
$instance_data = field_info_instance('node', $field, $origin);
foreach ($bundles as $bundle) {
$instance_data['bundle'] = $bundle;
field_create_instance($instance_data);
}
}

This is great, thanks.
How about if it issues an extra line before creating the instance and the field, to check if it already exists. I keep getting conflicts when I use this code in my install hook and re-install. Field API doesn't fully delete a field's data when its module is uninstalled. See this from drupal core
function _comment_body_field_create($info) {
// Create the field if needed.
if (!field_read_field('comment_body', array('include_inactive' => TRUE))) {
$field = array(
'field_name' => 'comment_body',
'type' => 'text_long',
'entity_types' => array('comment'),
);
field_create_field($field);
}