How to update post taxonomies (Creating a custom UI for Custom Taxonomy)

Question

I have a taxonomy eg. authors. I want to create a custom UI for. I think integrating with a Meta Box together with other post meta will make things easier for the user. Also I think a jQuery UI AutoComplete (Multiple comma separated values) is more appropriate

So I will need to know how I can "update_post_taxonomy". I suppose I will need to

• if taxonomy does not exists
  • create it
• if post does not have the taxonomy term
  • add it
• remove terms that are not specified by user

I am sure there are functions for this?

Answer 1

The function you are looking for is wp_set_post_terms()

which can create the terms if they don't exists and you can specify if to appended or replace existing terms. so you can remove all none user terms.

as for

if post does not have the taxonomy term , add it

you can use wp_get_post_terms() to check if the post has any terms of that taxonomy and if not then you can create and add using wp_set_post_terms() once again