Drupal - Set default value in hook_form_alter?

Question

Trying to prepopulate some of my form fields, and am using hook_form_alter(). I've tried a couple of different ways, but in both cases, the fields still come up empty. I'm assuming that I need to set default_value and not value because if the user changes what's in the field, I want that to update correctly. Is that right?

Here's what I've been trying:

function mymodule_form_alter(&$form, &$form_state, $form_id) {

    if($form_id == 'user_profile_form') {

        if(arg(0) == 'user' && arg(1)) {

            $user = user_load(arg(1));

            $form['profile_company_site']= array('#default_value' => $user->profile_company_site);
            $form['profile_blog_url']= array('#default_value' => $user->profile_blog_url);
            $form['profile_my_website_url']= array('#default_value' => $user->profile_my_website_url);
            $form['profile_first_name']= array('#default_value' => $user->profile_first_name);
            $form['profile_last_name']= array('#default_value' => $user->profile_last_name);

        }
    }

}

I also tried it this way:

function mymodule_form_alter(&$form, &$form_state, $form_id) {

    if($form_id == 'user_profile_form') {

        if(arg(0) == 'user' && arg(1)) {

            $user = user_load(arg(1));

            $form['profile_company_site'][#default_value'] = $user->profile_company_site);
            $form['profile_blog_url'][#default_value'] = $user->profile_blog_url);
            $form['profile_my_website_url']['#default_value'] = $user->profile_my_website_url);
            $form['profile_first_name']['#default_value'] = $user->profile_first_name);
            $form['profile_last_name']['#default_value'] = $user->profile_last_name);

        }
    }

}

Answer 1

You are missing one array level. The profile form fields will not be at the top level in the $form array, but in a subarray keyed by the category name. So if you assigned your fields a category of 'example category', your code should look like this:

function mymodule_form_alter(&$form, &$form_state, $form_id) {

    if($form_id == 'user_profile_form') {

        if(arg(0) == 'user' && arg(1)) {

            $user = user_load(arg(1));

            $form['example category']['profile_company_site']['#default_value'] = $user->profile_company_site);
            $form['example category']['profile_blog_url']['#default_value'] = $user->profile_blog_url);
            $form['example category']['profile_my_website_url']['#default_value'] = $user->profile_my_website_url);
            $form['example category']['profile_first_name']['#default_value'] = $user->profile_first_name);
            $form['example category']['profile_last_name']['#default_value'] = $user->profile_last_name);
        }
    }
}

You should use a debugger (or at least a var_dump()) to inspect the form array you want to manipulate - saves a lot of time.