Web developer

Work at Flint Interactive in Collingwood
http://www.flintinteractive.com.au

Working on and off with WordPress since v1.2

So 9 years.

Find me on Twitter: @navitronic

The process I am going to describe requires the WordPress environment

Doesn’t fit into the template loaded model

Need to bootstrap WordPress in a separate file

<?php
// import.php
require( './wp-load.php' );

Have people done this before?

wp_insert_post takes an array and inserts (or updates) a record in the wp_post table

// Create post object as an array.
// generally this would come from an external source.
$my_post = array(
  'post_title'    => 'My post',
  'post_content'  => 'This is my post.',
  'post_status'   => 'publish',
  'post_author'   => 1,
  'post_category' => array(8,39)
);

// Insert the post into the database
// Will return either the post ID or an instance of WP_Error
// Make sure you capture the ID or stop on error.

$post_id = wp_insert_post( $my_post, true );

wp_insert_post will update the post if ID is set in the array.

wp_update_post will only update the post.

// Update post 37
$my_post = array(
    'ID'           => 37,
    'post_content' => 'This is the updated content.'
);

// Update the post into the database
wp_update_post( $my_post );

Now you’ve created a post, you might need to add some meta data to it.

There are functions for adding, or updating post meta, as with posts

// Accepts id of post, the meta key, the meta value
// Final variable relates to whether the meta key is unique
add_post_meta($post_id, 'length', '100m', true);

In some instances, you might want to update post meta, if it exists.

if ( ! update_post_meta (7, 'fruit', 'banana' ) ) {
    // post meta for fruit, might end up as
    // banana, apple, etc
    add_post_meta( 7, 'fruit', 'banana' );
}

wp_insert_term will create a term for a specified taxonomy.

Works for both built in taxonomies and custom taxonomies.

wp_insert_term(
    'Apple', // the term
    'product', // the taxonomy
    array(
        'description'=> 'A yummy apple.',
        'slug' => 'apple',
        'parent'=> $parent_term_id
    )
);

// Returns an array of ids (term and term taxonomy)
// Or error. Capture, as appropriate.

wp_set_object_terms allows you to associate a post object with a taxonomy

Can be used for either built in taxonomies (tags, categories, formats etc)

Can also be used for custom taxonomies

// Add our post to categories.
$cat_ids = array( 6, 8 );
wp_set_object_terms( $post_id, $cat_ids, 'category' );

// Associate our post to product.
$product_ids = array( 7, 9);
wp_set_object_terms( $post_id, $product_ids, 'product' );

media_sideload_image allows us to grab an image from a url

From the codex

// Include relevant files.
require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/media.php');
require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/file.php');
require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/image.php');

$url = "http://s.wordpress.org/style/images/wp3-logo.png";
$post_id = 1;
$desc = "The WordPress Logo";

$image = media_sideload_image($url, $post_id, $desc);