This post outlines the steps required to create your own custom tokens in Drupal.

When writing the recent releases of the [Copyright Block](http://drupal.org/project/copyright_block "Copyright Block module on Drupal.org) module, I used tokens to allow the user to edit and customise their copyright message and place the copyright_message:dates token in the desired position. When the block is rendered, the token is replaced by the necessary dates.