Drupal - Create a menu programmatically in Drupal 7

If you are trying to do this in an update script, this should work:

$menus = array(
  array(
    'menu_name' => 'menu_test_one',
    'title' => 'My Menu One',
    'description' => 'Lorem Ipsum',
  ),
  array(
    'menu_name' => 'menu_test_two',
    'title' => 'My Menu Two',
    'description' => 'Lorem Ipsum',
  ),
  array(
    'menu_name' => 'menu_test_three',
    'title' => 'My Menu Three',
    'description' => 'Lorem Ipsum',
  ),
);

$links = array(
  array(
    array(
      'link_title' => 'Link1',
      'link_path' => 'http://yourdomain.com/link1',
      'menu_name' => 'menu_test_one',
      'weight' => 0,
      'expanded' => 0,
    ),
    array(
      'link_title' => 'Link2',
      'link_path' => 'http://yourdomain.com/link2',
      'menu_name' => 'menu_test_one',
      'weight' => 1,
      'expanded' => 0,
    ),
  ),
  array(
    array(
      'link_title' => 'Link3',
      'link_path' => 'http://yourdomain.com/link3',
      'menu_name' => 'menu_test_two',
      'weight' => 0,
      'expanded' => 0,
    ),
    array(
      'link_title' => 'Link4',
      'link_path' => 'http://yourdomain.com/link4',
      'menu_name' => 'menu_test_two',
      'weight' => 1,
      'expanded' => 0,
    ),
  ),
  array(
    array(
      'link_title' => 'Link5',
      'link_path' => 'http://yourdomain.com/link5',
      'menu_name' => 'menu_test_three',
      'weight' => 0,
      'expanded' => 0,
    ),
    array(
      'link_title' => 'Link6',
      'link_path' => 'http://yourdomain.com/link6',
      'menu_name' => 'menu_test_three',
      'weight' => 1,
      'expanded' => 0,
    ),
  ),
);

// Save menu group into menu_custom table
foreach ($menus as $menu) {
  // Look the table first if the data does exist
  $exists = db_query("SELECT title FROM {menu_custom} WHERE menu_name=:menu_name", array(':menu_name' => $menu['menu_name']))->fetchField();
  // Save the record if the data does not exist
  if (!$exists) {
    menu_save($menu);
  }
}

$item = ''; 
foreach ($links as $layer1) {
  foreach ($layer1 as $link) {
    // Build an array of menu link 
    $item = array(
      'link_path' => $link['link_path'],
      'link_title' => $link['link_title'],
      'menu_name' => $link['menu_name'],
      'weight' => $link['weight'],
      'expanded' => $link['expanded'],
    );
    // Look the table first if the data does exist
    $exists = db_query("SELECT mlid from {menu_links} WHERE link_title=:link_title AND link_path=:link_path", array(':link_title' =>  $link['link_title'], ':link_path' => $link['link_path']))->fetchField();
    // Save the record if the data does not exist
    if (!$exists) {  
      menu_link_save($item);
    }
  }
}

Comments are welcome if my approach is wrong. Thanks.

Here's a way to easily populate a menu from an array :

<?php
function populate_menu($links, $menu_name, $plid = 0) {
  foreach ($links as $link) {
    $ls = array(
      'menu_name' => $menu_name,
      'link_title' => $link['link_title'],
      'link_path' => $link['link_path'],
      'plid' => $plid,
    );
    $newpid = menu_link_save($ls);
    if (!empty($link['childs'])) {
      populate_menu($link['childs'], $menu_name, $newpid);
    }
  }
}


$items = array(
  array(
    'link_title' => 'Menu1',
    'link_path' => '<front>',
    'childs' => array(
      array(
        'link_title' => 'Sub Item 1',
        'link_path' => '<front>',
        'childs' => array(
          array(
            'link_title' => 'Link item 1',
            'link_path' => '<front>',
          ),
          array(
            'link_title' => 'Link item 2',
            'link_path' => '<front>',
          ),
        ),
      ),
      array(
        'link_title' => 'Sub Item 2',
        'link_path' => '<front>',
        'childs' => array(
          array(
            'link_title' => 'Link item',
            'link_path' => '<front>',
          ),
        ),
      ),
    ),
  ),
);
populate_menu($items, 'main-menu');

hook_menu() is all you need to implement in you custom module. For creation of custom module, refer to this documentation.

//Define the menus in the function which goes in your MYMODULE.module file  
function MYMODULE_menu() {
  //the menu which will point to http://yoursite/first-menu
  $items['first-menu'] = array(
    'title' => 'First menu',  // will appear as the name of the link
    // Page callback, etc. need to be added here.
  );

  //the menu which will point to http://yoursite/second-menu
  $items['second-menu'] = array(
    'title' => 'Second menu',  // will appear as the name of the link
    // Page callback, etc. need to be added here.
  );

  //the menu which will point to http://yoursite/third-menu
  $items['third-menu'] = array(
    'title' => 'third menu',  // will appear as the name of the link
    // Page callback, etc. need to be added here.
  );

  return $items;
}

You could print the menu in any region by adding the following code to the page.tpl.php file of you theme.

//add this line in <div id="header"></div> to print it in header.
<?php
$menu1 = menu_navigation_links('first-menu');
print theme('links__first_menu', array('links' => $menu1));

//print second menu just below first menu
$menu2 = menu_navigation_links('second-menu');
print theme('links__second_menu', array('links' => $menu1));
?>

You don't need to print third-menu because by default it will appear at the navigation menu.

---

NOTE: This is not best practice at all for creating a navigation menu and adding it to a page. hook_menu() is for creating page callbacks and not for creating navigation menus. Please read THIS, which explains the differences. I answered this when I had started to learn Drupal and I don't recommend this answer anymore.