WordPress: How to insert data programmatically

In this article, I’ll show you how you can easily add data (posts, comments, categories, etc) to your WordPress blog, without any manual effort.

Inserting post
Do you remember back in 2008, when I created WP Vote? This site was the first (as far as I know) social voting site created 100% within WordPress. Users were able to submit a story, which was automatically published on the blog.

Inserting a post programmatically in WordPress is extremely easy. You have to use the wp_insert_post() function, which takes an array as a parameter.
Here is a working example. If you want to test it, paste the code below on your functions.php file.

Cool, isn’t it? Let have a closer look to the parameters specified in the $new_post array:

  • post_title: the name of the post.
  • post_content: the content of the post
  • post_status: the post status (published, draft, etc)
  • post_date: use date() or specify a custom date
  • post_author: Author id of the post author
  • post_type: Can be post, page, or a custom post type
  • post_category An array of categories ids

Inserting Comments
Inserting comments is not harder than inserting posts. I personally never used this code, but here is it in case you need it. To give it a try, simply paste it in your functions.php file.

Just like the wp_insert_post() function, wp_insert_comment() takes an array as a parameter. Here are the data used:

  • comment_post_ID: ID of the commented post
  • comment_author: Name of the comment author
  • comment_author_email: Email address of the comment author
  • comment_author_url: Website of the comment author
  • comment_content: Text of the comment
  • comment_author_IP: IP address of the comment author
  • comment_agent: User agent of the commenter browser
  • comment_date: Date of the comment
  • comment_date_gmt: GMT date of the comment
  • comment_approved: Is the comment approved? 1 for yes and 0 for “awaiting moderation”

Adding Categories To A Post
Now that we saw how to insert a post or a comment into WordPress database, let’s see how to make a post part of one (or more) categories. WordPress has a built-in function for that, named wp_set_object_terms().

What you have to do is to create an array with the desired categories ID, and then use the function as shown below:

The wp_set_object_terms() function take 3 parameters: The post ID, an array of categories ID, and the taxonomy type (In this example, category).

Adding Tag to A Post
Adding tags to a post is extremely simple as well. Even better, it does not require a new function, you can do so by using wp_set_object_terms().
Take a look at the example below:

Looks very similar with the previous piece of code, which allowed us to add categories to a post, isn’t it? In fact, the only difference is the taxonomy type: Here the parameter is post_tag instead of category.
So how does it work? First, a function has been created. This function make sure the post isn’t a revision on then adds a custom field named field-name, with custom value as a value.
Then, a “hook” is used to make sure that every time a post or page will be published, the add_custom_field_automatically() function will be called.

Sarah DrysdaleComment