Attach image to post in Wordpress XMLRPC

Question

I am using XMLRPC to do posts to Wordpress. I am having issues posting thumbnails, after debugging wordpress code I see that my issue is caused by the fact that the image is not attached to the post. I must do this without patching wordpress or using PHP, only iwth XMLRPC.

I can upload an image and get the ID of the image. Other point that confuses me is how do you attach an image to a post that you did not posted yet because you wait for the image to upload? I am supposed to upload image then post ,then using the image id and the post id do an update on the image metadata?

Edit: the code in wordpress that is problematic is this check

if ( $thumbnail_html = wp_get_attachment_image( $thumbnail_id, 'thumbnail' ) )

and my assumption it is that it fails because the image is Unattached, if i fix that code all is fine but I can't patch the WP of my application users(so this is not a solution)

Cesaria

See wp.tutsplus.com/tutorials/creative-coding/…. – Goodall

it is not possible without manipulating the PHP code in some way. – Overthrow

Answer 1

Yes it is possible to do it, if Wordpress version is 3.5 or greater,when using the code for uploading file/image you can set the post_id. The flow I used for new posts with featured images is like this:

1. use the newPost function and post the content without the featured image and also set publish to false, record the post_id returned by this

2. upload the image and set the post_id to the id of the post just posted, record the image_id

3. when done edit the post and set the wp_post_thumbnail equal to the image_id you just uploaded and also set publish to true(if needed)

Important: The mime type is important, it must be "image/jpg" or "image/png" please see documentation, if mime type is worng like "jpg" attaching will fail.

Tip: For debugging, if you get a generic error from wordpress and you can't figure out why you can check the wordpress code and even edit it, adding debugging/tracing calls and hopefully you can figure out the cause.

This is an example of a post with category, image and tags. It requires class-IXR.php
https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/blob/master/wp-includes/class-IXR.php
and mime_content_type function
https://github.com/caiofior/storebaby/blob/master/magmi/plugins/extra/general/socialnotify/wp/mimetype.php

        $client = new IXR_Client($url);
        $content = array(
            'post_status' => 'draft',
            'post_type' => 'post',
            'post_title' => 'Title',
            'post_content' => 'Message',
             // categories ids
            'terms' => array('category' => array(3))
        );
        $params = array(0, $username, $password, $content);
        $client->query('wp.newPost', $params);
        $post_id = $client->getResponse();

        $content = array(
            'name' => basename('/var/www/sb/img.jpeg'),
            'type' => mime_content_type('/var/www/sb/img.jpeg'),
            'bits' => new IXR_Base64(file_get_contents('/var/www/sb/img.jpeg')),
            true
        );
        $client->query('metaWeblog.newMediaObject', 1, $username, $password, $content);
        $media = $client->getResponse();
        $content = array(
            'post_status' => 'publish',
            // Tags
            'mt_keywords' => 'tag1, tag2, tag3',
            'wp_post_thumbnail' => $media['id']
        );
        $client->query('metaWeblog.editPost', $post_id, $username, $password, $content, true);

Cesaria

Why is it necessary to do this in two steps with Editing? Seems to me you can upload the image first, capture the id, then attach the Id in newPost()? – Millesimal

@RickStrahl trust me at that time all those steps were important, maybe now is different, but to upload that image you had to have the post_id to attach the image to the post, and to set the featured image you needed the id of the uploaded image, my question and answer was for using XMLRPC directly and no WP library that maybe can do it in fewer steps – Cesaria

Answer 2

My version if you want to use only wp.newPost and wp.editPost

include_once( ABSPATH . WPINC . '/class-IXR.php' );
include_once( ABSPATH . WPINC . '/class-wp-http-ixr-client.php' );

    $usr = 'username_on_the_server_side';
    $pwd = 'password_on_the_server_side';
    $xmlrpc = 'server side xmlrpc.php url';
    $client = new IXR_Client($xmlrpc);

    ////////////  IMAGE UPLOAD AND ATTACHMENT POST CREATION  ///////////
       $img_attach = 'link to the image';
       $img_attach_content = array(
                'name' => basename($img_attach),
                'type' => mime_content_type($img_attach),
                'bits' => new IXR_Base64(file_get_contents($img_attach)),
                        );
        $status = $client->query( 'wp.uploadFile','1',  $usr, $pwd, $img_attach_content );
        $image_returnInfo = $client ->getResponse();

   ////////////  POST CREATION  ///////////

        $custom_fields = array( 
                          array( 'key' => 'blabla1', 'value' => 'blabla1_value' ),
                          array( 'key' => 'blabla12', 'value' => 'blabla1_value2')
                          ); 
        $post_content = array(
            'post_type' => 'post',
            'post_status' => 'draft', //for now
            'post_title' => 'XMLRPC Test',
            'post_author' => 3,
            'post_name' => 'XMLRPC Test',
            'post_content' => 'XMLRPC Test Content',
            'custom_fields' => $custom_fields
        );

    $res = $client -> query('wp.newPost',1, $usr, $pwd, $post_content);
    $postID =  $client->getResponse();
    if(!$res)
        echo 'Something went wrong....';
    else {
            echo 'The Project Created Successfully('.$res.')<br>Post ID is '.$postID.'<br>';
    }

   ////////////  Image Post Attachment Edit  ///////////
      $img_attach_content2 = array(
                'post_type'  => 'attachment',   
                'post_status' => 'inherit', 
                'post_title' => $postID, 
                'post_name' => $postID, 
                'post_parent'  => $postID,
                'guid'    => $image_returnInfo['url'],
                'post_content'   => '',
                'post_mime_type' => 'image/jpg'
                 );

     $res2 = $client -> query('wp.editPost', 0, $usr, $pwd,      $image_returnInfo['id'], $img_attach_content2);

    $postIDimg =  $client->getResponse();    

    ////////////   POST EDIT  ///////////

      $post_content2 = array(
                 'post_status' => 'publish', //publish
                'wp_post_thumbnail' => $image_returnInfo['id'],
                'custom_fields' =>    array( 'key' => '_thumbnail_id', 'value' =>  $image_returnInfo['id'] ) 
            );
            $media2= $client->query('wp.editPost',0, $usr, $pwd, $postID, $post_content2);

Roadblock

Answer 3

This is my version, using wp.newPost and wp.editPost, added on WordPress 3.4, that allow the use of custom post types.

require_once("IXR_Library.php.inc");
$title = 'My title';
$body = 'My body';
$category="category1, category2"; // Comma seperated pre existing categories. Ensure that these categories exists in your blog.
$keywords="keyword1, keyword2, keyword3";
$customfields=array('key'=>'Author-bio', 'value'=>'Autor Bio Here'); // Insert your custom values like this in Key, Value format

$title = htmlentities($title,ENT_NOQUOTES,@$encoding);
$keywords = htmlentities($keywords,ENT_NOQUOTES,@$encoding);

$content = array(
    'post_title'=>$title,
    'post_content'=>$body,
    'post_type'=>'some_custom_post_type',
    'post_status' => 'draft', // http://codex.wordpress.org/Post_Status
    'mt_allow_comments'=>0, // 1 to allow comments
    'mt_allow_pings'=>0, // 1 to allow trackbacks
    'mt_keywords'=>$keywords,
    'categories'=>array($category),
    'custom_fields' => array($customfields)
);

// Create the client object
$client = new IXR_Client('http://example.com/xmlrpc.php');
$username = "wp_username";
$password = "wp_username_password";

$params = array(0,$username,$password,$content,true); // Last parameter is 'true' which means post immediately, to save as draft set it as 'false'

if (!$client->query('wp.newPost', $params)) {
    die('<br/><strong>Something went wrong - '.$client->getErrorCode().' : '.$client->getErrorMessage().'<br >');

    }
else
{   
    $post_id = $client->getResponse();
    echo 'Inserted with id'.$post_id;
    $picture = '/full/path/to/pic.jpg';
    $content = array(
        'name' => basename($picture),
        'type' => mime_content_type($picture),
        'bits' => new IXR_Base64(file_get_contents($picture)),
        true
    );
    if (!$client->query('metaWeblog.newMediaObject', 1, $username, $password, $content)) {
        die('<br/><strong>Something went wrong - newMediaObject'.$client->getErrorCode().' : '.$client->getErrorMessage().'<br >');
    }
    else
    {
        $media = $client->getResponse();
        $content = array(
            'post_status' => 'publish',
            'post_thumbnail' => $media['id']
        );
        if (!$client->query('wp.editPost', 0, $username, $password,  $post_id, $content)) {
            die('<br/><strong>Something went wrong editPost - '.$client->getErrorCode().' : '.$client->getErrorMessage().'<br >');
        }
    }
}

Shama