Introduction

The Content Construction Kit or CCK is a suite of modules that enable the creation, management, and customization of node types. By default, Drupal comes with a few rudimentary and generic node types to serve the basic requirements of a site. Once we are past this gradient, however, we arrive at the rather impressive roadblock of field customization. Traditionally, extending a node type to include custom fields would usually mean the creation of a dedicated module, the addition of custom fields using Drupal's Form API, handling their validation, submission, and database storage requirements besides having to account for upgrade paths and inviting perennial security questions.

While there are certain advantages with going at it directly using code, the tedium of it all soon becomes a time sink. CCK abstracts the entire process by allowing us to add, manage, customize, and reuse form fields directly from Drupal's administration pages. With database tables automatically created...