Allow underscore in menu machine name

Created on 17 August 2022, over 2 years ago

Updated 5 March 2025, about 1 month ago

Problem/Motivation

Machine names of menus use a hyphen instead of an underscore as default replacement.
This is different then most (all?) other machine-names.

A machine-name like menu_main is therefor not possible. It must be menu-main.

This is possibly only a UI feature for helping administrators with creating valid machine-names.
In that case there are no deeper dependencies where code related to the menu-system requires the hyphen-pattern.

Steps to reproduce

Create a new menu via the UI, use the underscore _ in the machine-name. Notice the underscore is replaced with a hyphen -
Create a new menu via code and use underscores in its machinename, edit the menu in the UI and notice this error: "A unique name to construct the URL for the menu. It must only contain lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens."

Proposed resolution

If this is a UI feature only the proposal is:

Allow both _ and - in machine-names of menu's. This is a BC layer for both patterns.
Default the replacement to underscore _ which is inline with other machine-names.
Currently no upgrade path where existing menu machine-names are converted to the underscore pattern.
Currently no changes in default config (install profiles) that create new menus in new installations.

After this change the following machine-names are valid

menu_main
menu-main
menu-_main

If an administrator creates a new menu with the title "Menu main", the automatically created machine-name will be the first one with underscores i.e. menu_main

Remaining tasks

Create a patch
Get an answer if there is code in Drupal core or contrib that depends on the existing machine-name pattern without underscore

User interface changes

API changes

Both Underscores and hyphens are allowed in menu-machine names

Data model changes

Release notes snippet

✨ Feature request

Status

Needs work

Version

11.0 🔥

Component

menu system

Created by

🇳🇱Netherlands ndf Amsterdam

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Incomplete comments

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First commit to issue fork.
Comment 16 days ago →
🇮🇳India sayan_k_dutta
Working on it
@sayan_k_dutta opened merge request.
Comment 13 days ago →
🇮🇳India sayan_k_dutta
The patch in #11 solves the problem. Both underscores and hyphens are now applied to menu machine names. By default, as a replacement underscores are applied, inline with the naming convention of other machine names. Created MR !11592 for the same.
The screenshots are attached below after testing on my local:

Need others to review.
Comment 13 days ago →
🇮🇳India sayan_k_dutta
Comment 13 days ago →
🇬🇧United Kingdom MrDaleSmith
Works perfectly for me. RTBC?
Comment 13 days ago →
🇮🇳India sayan_k_dutta
@mrdalesmith, works perfectly and passing all tests. You can move it to RTBC.
Comment 13 days ago →
🇬🇧United Kingdom MrDaleSmith

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