Best way to load WordPress Bootstrap

Question

My script needs to load the whole WP in order to work probably. I'm currently doing it this way

if ( !defined('ABSPATH') ) {

    /** Load WordPress Bootstrap */
    @ini_set('include_path', '../../../');
    require_once('../../../wp-load.php');

}

//additional html stuff

do_action('my_custom_hook');

//more html stuff

which works most of the time. Sometimes people get a Fatal error for a missing file though.

The script is located at

wp-content/plugins/my-plugin-slug/script.php

What's the best way to load it?

Answer 1

Requiring a file using relative path is never a good idea, that because wp content folder can be easily changed and that make your code fail.

You should convert your file into a MU plugin (you only need to save it wp-content/mu-plugins folder) and change it to something like:

add_action( 'wp_ajax_super_custom_stuff', 'my_super_custom_stuff' );
add_action( 'wp_ajax_nopriv_super_custom_stuff', 'my_super_custom_stuff' );

function my_super_custom_stuff() {

  // additional html stuff

  do_action('my_custom_hook');
  exit();

}

After that, to make the script run, instead of calling the url

http://example.com/wp-content/plugins/my-plugin-slug/script.php

you can call

http://example.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=super_custom_stuff

This will always work because wp-admin folder, unlike wp-content, can't be changed because it is hardcoded in a lot of places.

You can run the script from a linux crontab using something like:

wget -q --spider "http://example.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=super_custom_stuff"