Question

I have been trying this project of mine for a while now and I have got no luck. I’m trying to create 8 post programmatically in functions.php. I need these to only post 1 time. The problem I’ve been having is everytime I refresh the page the post will just auto create more. Here is my code to create post progammatically in functions.php.

<?php // Create post object
$my_post = array(
     'post_title' => 'How to make your diet success',
     'post_name' => '7-ways-to-make-succes-Diet',
     'post_content' => 'my content',
     'post_status' => 'publish',
     'post_author' => 1,
     'post_category' => array(8,39)
  );

// Insert the post into the database
wp_insert_post( $my_post ); ?>

The only proble with this code is that it auto creates more post every time the page refreshes. I’m going to be creating 8 of these functions and I only want them to be created once. A code example would be great.

---

Next, I want to display the post on my index.php. I want to get these post individually. Here is my code I have so far.

<div class="post1"><?php $post_id = wp_insert_post( $post, $wp_error );
//now you can use $post_id withing add_post_meta or update_post_meta ?> </div>

<div class="post2"><?php $post_id = wp_insert_post( $post, $wp_error );
//now you can use $post_id withing add_post_meta or update_post_meta ?> </div>

---

I’m pretty sure I need to either call the slugs or post name to get them individually. Yes, I have tried this method as well as 10 other methods but nothing has worked. The closest I got was it to display the post name. Code examples would be great. I will be so grateful and probably donate some money via paypal if someone can get this working for me. Thanks.

Answer 1

functions.php is not a good place for programatically create pages nor posts. You should create a plugin (it is simple as creating custom theme) and create posts in its activation function. This function is called only on your plugin activation. Read also about plugin deactivation a uninstall hooks

The reason why your posts get created again and again is that file functions.php is called each time the page is requested. If you insist on creating posts in functions.php, you should wrap your wp_insert_post by a condition chcecking whether your posts are already created – than get_posts function would suit your needs.

<?php 
//Use either post slug (post_name)
$post = get_posts( array( 'name' => '7-ways-to-make-success-diet' ) );
/*or $post = get_posts( array( 'name' => sanitize_title('My Single.php Test') ) );
if you do not set the post_name attribute and let WordPress to set it up for you */
if ( empty($post) ) {
    // Create post object 
    $my_post = array( 'post_title' => 'My Single.php Test', 'post_name' => '7-ways-to-make-success-diet', 'post_content' => 'my content4654654', 'post_status' => 'publish', 'post_author' => 1, 'post_category' => array(8,39) ); 
    // Insert the post into the database 
    wp_insert_post( $my_post ); 
}
?>

Also, get_posts will help you to bring your posts on front page. Eg.

<?php 
$post = get_posts( array( 'name' => 'How to make your diet success' ) );
echo $post->post_title;
...
?>