Drupal Interview Questions And Answers

1) Explain what is Drupal?

Ans) Drupal is a Content Management System (CMS). It’s an open source content and free CMS framework written in PHP. It enables you to organize, manage and publish content with ease and comes with a variety of customization option.


2) Why to use Drupal?

Ans) Drupal is very powerful and can be used for building large, complex sites. It is PHP based template and allows non-technical users to add and edit the content without any HTML or Web design knowledge. Using Drupal CMS, it can be easy to interact with other sites or technologies and can handle complex forms and workflows. It is available with more than 16000 modules which can be addressed with Drupal core and add-on modules.


3) Mention what are the key features of Drupal?

Ans) There are two key features of Drupal

  • Upload Module: It enables users to attach different types of files to node types of your liking.
  • Embedding: It enables to embed media within nodes that are hosted on your websites.


    • 4) Explain how caching work in Drupal?

    Ans) Through caching Drupal allows to speed up website using different configuration like page caching, block caching and lifetime for cached pages.

  • Page Caching: It enables the entire HTML of each page to be stored in the database. It reduces the amount of queries needed
  • Block Caching: You can set the cache setting for a block in views, when block created by views
  • Minimum cache lifetime: It is the amount of time before the page cache is cleared. On each cron run, page caches are cleared.
  • Expiration of cached pages: It only applies for an external mechanism, for example, your browser cache or varnish


    • 5) What is a patch?

    Ans) A patch is a file that contains a list of differences between one set of files, and another. Through patches, all the changes in code like additions or deletions to Drupal core can be made. Also, patches can be used to make changes to another copy of the original or main file.


    6) What do PDO mean?

    Ans)PDO means PHP Data Object; it is a lean and consistent way to access databases. It allows developers to write portable code with ease.


    7)What is Drupal main menu?

    Ans) Menus are very important to navigate your website easily. Menus offer a set of links as a result; you can navigate your website. The Drupal menu allows you to add, remove and rename the menus and menu items.


    8)What is the use of Show as expanded field while creating menu?

    Ans) If it is consist of sub-menus. Then it will be displayed under parent menu item.


    9)What is the use of weight field while creating menu?

    Ans) It Sets the order of menu items.


    10) What is Drupal blocks?

    Ans) Blocks are container objects that are used to organize your content of your website.


    11) What is the use of the field set the width of each sidebar in the layout and general settings?

    Ans) It is used to set width of first sidebar and second sidebar and unit in % or px or em.


    12) What is the use of Media query for this layout field in the layout and general settings?

    Ans) Media query defines different style rules for different media devices and by default for this layout will be 1025px.


    13) What is the maximum and minimum width for media query for Landscape tablet in tablet layout?

    Ans) Media query for Landscape tablet will be min-width: 769px and max-width: 1024px.


    14) What does sticky at top of lists does in publishing options while creating the front page?

    Ans) It fixes your page at top of lists on your site.


    15) Explain how database system of Drupal works?

    Ans) In a database Drupal stores information, and each information has its own database table. For example, the basic information regarding the nodes of your site are stored and kept in the node table, and if you use the CCK module to add fields to your nodes, the field information is stored in a separate table.


    16) What is DRUSH in Drupal?

    Ans) DRUSH is a command line shell and UNIX scripting interface for Drupal


    17)Explain what Drupal distributions is and when to use?

    Ans) Distributions are full copies of Drupal, which includes Drupal Core, along with additional software as modules, themes, libraries and installation profiles. You can use distributions for

  • Evaluating Drupal
  • Demoing Drupal
  • Learning Drupal
  • Quickly binding Site


    • 18) List out the SEO modules available in Drupal?

    Ans) Some of the SEO modules available in Drupal are

  • Pathauto
  • Meta tags/ Node words
  • Service Links
  • Google Analytics
  • Related Links
  • Search 404
  • Site map
  • Url list


    • 19) Explain what is Drupal weight?

    Ans) The term Drupal weight is used to describe the priority or order in which the function is processed, or block/ node is displayed. A heavier (+10) weights will appear lower in lists while a lower weight (-10) will float to the top of lists.


    20) Explain what is Drupal cron?

    Ans) To execute commands or scripts automatically at specified time and date intervals, you have to use Drupal cron.


    21) Why Drupal needs database? What databases are supported?

    Ans) Drupal stores its information in the database like individual pages, registered users and so on. For your Drupal site, database forms the back end; it supports MySQL /MariaDB, PostgreSQL and in Drupal 7, SQLite.


    22) Explain what is render array in Drupal?

    Ans)For Drupal content render arrays are the basic building blocks. In Drupal, render arrays provide you a structured way to programmatically change the content before it is displayed.


    23) What is the use of URL path settings option while creating basic page?

    Ans) Here you can specify alternative URL by which content can be accessed. Don't add slash at the end or beginning of the URL alias or else it will not work.


    24) What is the use of Publishing options while creating blogs?

    Ans) It allows you to publish your blog content on Front Page or you can stick at top of lists as per the demand.


    25)What is Drupal content type?

    Ans) Drupal content type defines the style in which contents are collected and displayed.


    26) What is taxonomy?

    Ans) Taxonomy can be thought of classifying website content which display specific content based on taxonomy terms.


    27)Mention the terms that Drupal taxonomy is created?

    Ans) Drupal taxonomy is made up of several terms such as:

  • Term: It is used to manage or describe the content.
  • Vocabulary: It is set of terms.


    • 28) What is Anonymous user?

    Ans) It allows user to access your website without asking them for the username or password.


    29) What is authenticated user?

    Ans) It allows only those users to access your website, who are authenticated to use it.


    30) Mention the steps to optimize the Drupal website?

    Ans) The steps to optimize the Drupal site are:

  • Enable Page Caching
  • Compress CSS files
  • Js Aggregation
  • Moving Media Files and Static files to a CDN
  • Optimize Images Size and Their Number
  • Theme Optimization


    • 31)What is Drupal error handling?

    Ans) Error Handling is a process of detection and finding the resolutions for the errors, this can be programming application errors or communicable errors.


    32) What is the use of twitter suffix option in advanced tab in druapl social networking?

    Ans) Twitter Suffix will optionally append a Twitter handle, or text, so that you get pinged when someone shares an article.


    33) Explain what is the use of Ctools in Drupal?

    Ans) This suite is a set of APIs and tools, and it makes easier to handle AJAX requests and tell the client what to do with them.


    34) What are the files required for theme and module?

    Ans)Drupal uses .info files to store metadata about themes and modules. The files required for

  • Theme: style.css , page.tpl.php , template.php, block.tpl.php
  • Module: modulename.info , modulename.module , optional modulename.install


    • 35) Explain using module how you can drop the table?

    Ans) To drop the table you can use db_drop_table in install file.


    36) What are the translations available in Drupal?

    Ans) Drupal is translated into all popular languages including

  • Catalan
  • French
  • Hungarian
  • Dutch


    • 37) What is Drupal Pane module?

    Ans) Pane module is used to translate the custom panel's pane with optional title that will be stored as variables and it can be translate or edit quickly.


    38) What is aggregator module?

    Ans) Aggregator Module takes the content from other websites but does not generate any feeds. It is also known as a feed reader. It gathers, displays texts and images and other sites and blogs.


    39) What is the use of Length of trimmed description field in Feed aggregator?

    Ans) Select the length of your descriptions.


    40) What is the use of auto-reply field in contact module?

    Ans) Sends the automatic reply message to the user.


    41) What is the use of Product SKU while setting shopping cart?

    Ans) Unique identifier for the product is given here.


    42) What is the use of Rate field while setting up taxes?

    Ans) It is a percentage used to calculate the tax which is expressed as a decimal.


    43) What is the use of Tax amount rounding mode field while setting discounts?

    Ans) Specify what type of rounding should occur when tax rates of tax type are calculated for the unit price of a line item.


    44) What is the use of Add to Cart Form Settings field in receive donation

    Ans) It includes the product line item types in add to cart form to collect information.


    45) What is the use of server field in setup payments?

    Ans) We should select the server from either of the one i.e. Production or Sandbox.


    46)What is Drupal invoice generation?

    Ans) Invoice is a document with a statement of amount and cost, unique invoice number and tax information.


    47)Which PHP compatibility is used for Drupal?

    Ans) PHP 5.2+


    48) What are the advantages of Drupal?

    Ans)The advantages of Drupal are:

  • Drupal is a flexible CMS that allows handling content types including video, text, blog, menu handling, real-time statistics etc.
  • It provides a number of templates for developing web applications. So there is no need to start from scratch if you are building simple or complicated web applications.
  • Drupal is easy to manage or create blog or website. It helps to organize, structure, find and reuse content.
  • Drupal provides some interesting themes and templates which gives your website an attractive look.
  • Drupal has over 7000 plug-ins to boost your website. Since Drupal is an open source, you can create your own plug-ins.


    • 49)What is Multilingual content?

    Ans) Multilingual means your content can be written and will be displayed in different languages.


    50)What are disadvantages of Drupal?

    Ans) The disadvantage of Drupal are:

  • Drupal is not user friendly interface. It requires advanced knowledge and few basic things about the platform to install and modify.
  • Drupal is new content management system. It is not compatible with other software.
  • Performance is low compared to other CMS's. The website which is built using Drupal will generate big server loads and never opens with a slow internet connection.