Fatal Errors on pluggable.php

Question

I was looking to change the "Wordpress" name in all of my sent mail. In the past I have customized my Wordpress backend to display my desired email. But I have downloaded a new plugin that has altered the email name field. I went to attempt to change it again but this time in the pluggable.php template file.

However things did not go as planned now I have a fatal error:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function _fill_user() in /home/content/61/7791761/html/Portal/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 199

I need to fix this seems as though it has something to do with the $wpdb variable

/**
 * Retrieve user info by a given field
 *
 * @since 2.8.0
 *
 * @param string $field The field to retrieve the user with.  id | slug | email | login
 * @param int|string $value A value for $field.  A user ID, slug, email address, or      login name.
 * @return bool|object False on failure, User DB row object
 */
function get_user_by($field, $value) {
global $wpdb;

switch ($field) {
    case 'id':
        return get_userdata($value);
        break;
    case 'slug':
        $user_id = wp_cache_get($value, 'userslugs');
        $field = 'user_nicename';
        break;
    case 'email':
        $user_id = wp_cache_get($value, 'useremail');
        $field = 'user_email';
        break;
    case 'login':
        $value = sanitize_user( $value );
        $user_id = wp_cache_get($value, 'userlogins');
        $field = 'user_login';
        break;
    default:
        return false;
}

 if ( false !== $user_id )
    return get_userdata($user_id);

 if ( !$user = $wpdb->get_row( $wpdb->prepare("SELECT * FROM $wpdb->users WHERE $field = %s", $value) ) )
    return false;

_fill_user( $user );

return $user;
}
endif;   

Answer 1

Don't mess around with changing those files directly. It will break when that file gets changed in an update. Do this instead.

add_filter( 'wp_mail_from', 'override_mail_from_address' );
add_filter( 'wp_mail_from_name', 'override_mail_from_name' );

function override_mail_from_address($email_address) {
    $from_array = explode('@', $email_address);
    $from_address = $from_array[0];
    $from_domain = $from_array[1];

    if (strtolower($from_address) == 'wordpress') {
        $from_address = "myname"; /* Put the email address you want here */
    }

    return ( $from_address . '@' . $from_domain );
}

function override_mail_from_name($email_name) {
    if (strtolower($email_name) == 'wordpress') {
        $email_name = "My Name"; /* Put the name you want here */
    }

    return ( $email_name );
}

Answer 2

If there are hooks in place that will do the job, as in @XIROXAS answer, I think that using those is the best solution, but pluggable.php contains functions that are meant to be overwritten.

If, for example, you want to alter get_user_by, which you mention in the question, just create your own function with that name in a plugin file and it will be used instead of the function from pluggable.php.

Note that :

Pluggable functions are no longer being added to WordPress core. All new functions instead use filters on their output to allow for similar overriding of their functionality.

http://codex.wordpress.org/Pluggable_Functions

I suspect that means that these will eventually be deprecated, but that is a guess and they are not currently listed as such and so should still be safe to use.

Now, I can't find _fill_user on my WordPress 3.5.1 at all. I greped the whole thing. I assume it has been removed but can't find precise information on when. The last time I see a reference to it in get_user_by is WordPRess 3.2. At any rate, that function you posted mimics the old version of get_user_by. Compare against the new version.

Whatever has added that pluggable function has added one that does not seem to be compatible with the current WordPress core. It will need to be rewritten to operate without _fill_user

If your pluggable.php itself, and looks like it may, still has that call to _fill_user something has likely gone wrong with an update somewhere and you need to reupload that file. It wouldn't hurt to reupload all of your core files just to be sure you get everything the way it should be.

Answer 3

Late answer, but this may help others:

But if your plugin needs a function in pluggables.php (like wp_safe_redirect), then you must manually include_once that file. Otherwise, you get an 'call to undefined function' error for a function that is in that pluggables.php file.

I did it this way

    if ( !function_exists('wp_safe_redirect')) {
        require_once (ABSPATH . WPINC . '/pluggable.php');
     }

Replace the function name (in this case 'wp_safe_redirect') with your needed function.

Perhaps this will save someone the several hours I spent trying to figure that error.