Auto-Tweet if Type is 'Status' using OAuth

Question

Should be simple - I'd like WP to tweet the content of a post once (when it's published the first time) if the post format is 'status'.

The code below isn't returning an error on publish, nor is it tweeting OR updating the post metadata, which leads me to believe I'm either using the hook incorrectly or there's something wrong with checking the post type as I have.

This is currently living in my functions.php

I'm using Matt Harris' tmhOAuth and have successfully tweeted from a standalone tweet.php using most of the function below.

Keys and secrets removed for security.

function posse_twitter( $post ) {
    // check post type if necessary
    if ( $post->post_type != 'status' ) return;

    $post_id = $post->ID;
    $tweet_content = $post->post_content;

    if ( !get_post_meta( $post_id, 'tweeted', $single = true ) ) {
        // ...run code once
        //Include Libraries
        require 'libraries/tmhOAuth/tmhOAuth.php';
        require 'libraries/tmhOAuth/tmhUtilities.php';
        $tmhOAuth = new tmhOAuth(array(
          'consumer_key'    => 'XXXXX',
          'consumer_secret' => 'XXXXX',
          'user_token'      => 'XXXXX',
          'user_secret'     => 'XXXXX',
        ));

        $code = $tmhOAuth->request('POST', $tmhOAuth->url('1/statuses/update'), array(
          'status' => $tweet_content
        ));

        if ($code == 200) {
          tmhUtilities::pr(json_decode($tmhOAuth->response['response']));
        } else {
          tmhUtilities::pr($tmhOAuth->response['response']);
        }
        update_post_meta( $post_id, 'tweeted', true );
    }
}

add_action( 'draft_to_published', 'posse_twitter' );

Answer 1

My guess is that you aren't hitting the {$old_status}_to_{$new_status} action, which is what you are hooking to with draft_to_published - for new posts there is no guarantee that the "old" status is actually "draft". Have you tried using the {$new_status}_{$post->post_type} action, which in your case would be publish_status?

Answer 2

$post isn't available during {$new_status}_{$post->post_type}, but $post_ID is. We pass that to the function and then call in $post globally.

I should have also been testing using get_post_format(), not for a type.

After those corrections, everything seems to be running smoothly with the caveat that if the post is not auto-saved or saved as a draft prior to hitting publish, things like $post->post_content will still be empty during {$new_status}_{$post->post_type}.

New code below.

function posse_twitter( $post_ID ) {
    global $post;
    // check post type if necessary
    if ( get_post_format( $post->ID ) != 'status' ) return;

    $post_id = $post->ID;
    $tweet_content = $post->post_content;

    if ( !get_post_meta( $post_id, 'tweeted', $single = true ) ) {
        // ...run code once
        require 'libraries/tmhOAuth/tmhOAuth.php';
        require 'libraries/tmhOAuth/tmhUtilities.php';
        $tmhOAuth = new tmhOAuth(array(
          'consumer_key'    => 'XXXX',
          'consumer_secret' => 'XXXX',
          'user_token'      => 'XXXX',
          'user_secret'     => 'XXXX',
        ));

        $code = $tmhOAuth->request('POST', $tmhOAuth->url('1/statuses/update'), array(
          'status' => $tweet_content
        ));

        update_post_meta( $post_id, 'tweeted', true );
    }
}

add_action( 'publish_post', 'posse_twitter' );

Handy: Adam Brown's API reference