Entities, Bundles,Fields and Field instance

Entities

An entity is an abstractdata type in drupal. An Entitytype is required to implementthe Entity interfaces asdefined in the core Entity API. It is a generalisation of the node,comment, user, taxonomy term types of previous versions of Drupal.In Drupal 7, only the R from CRUD is specified in core, but work isunderway to fill the gap in next versions. There is acontributed Entity APImodule, which aims to do it. Entities can havemultiple bundles

Bundles

Bundles are groups of fields. A bundle is a specialisation, aninstance of an entity. Ifnode is an entity, then an article isan bundle. This allows distinguishing thekinds and types within the system - kinds classify types, typesclassify values (concrete objects)

Fields

Fields are the incarnation of the CCKdata type of the same name moved to Drupal core. What are they? Theanswer can be found by reading Field Api. Inessence, a field is aprimitive drupal data type implementing the interface described inthose pages. Fields have an associated schema, formatter(s),widget(s) and settings. Example field types - file field, textfield, etc... Modules can define new field types.

Field Instances

A Field Instance is aconcrete specialisation of a fieldtype. It captures the field type together with itsconfiguration - schema, formatter and widget. Field instances areattached to bundles.

Fieldable objects

The term is sometimes used for entities andbundles.