WP_Query get posts where post_name is empty

Question

I want to get all the posts for which the post_name(slug) is not set/empty as well as a meta_key does not exist.

$args = array (
    'post_type'              => 'books',
    'name'                   => '',
    'post_status'            => array('publish, draft'),
    'posts_per_page'         => -1,
    'meta_query'             => array(
        array(
            'key'       => 'book_isbn_id',
            'value'     => 'dummy',
            'compare'   => 'NOT EXISTS',
            'type'      => 'NUMERIC',
        ),
    ),
);
$query = new WP_Query( $args );
echo $query->request;

It seems that 'name' = '' or 'name' = ' ' is completely ignored from what I see from echo $query->request.

Am I doing anything wrong?

Answer 1

You can try this:

$args = array (
    'post_type'              => 'books',
    'name'                   => '',
    'post_status'            => array('publish, draft'),
    'posts_per_page'         => -1,
    'meta_query'             => array(
        array(
            'key'       => 'book_isbn_id',
            'value'     => 'dummy',
            'compare'   => 'NOT EXISTS',
            'type'      => 'NUMERIC',
        ),
    ),
);

add_filter( 'posts_where', 'custom_posts_where' );
$query = new WP_Query( $args );
echo $query->request;

where

function custom_posts_where( $where )
{
    remove_filter( current_filter(), __FUNCTION__ );
    if( FALSE === strpos( $where, 'post_name' ) )
    {
        $where .= sprintf( " AND %s.post_name = '' ", $GLOBALS['wpdb']->posts );
    }
    return $where;
}

to search for empty post names.

Answer 2

Posts name will never be empty as it is automatically set when you set the title. or if title is left blank then your post_name will be your post id. So your query will never return any results unless you've hacked the wordpress core...