how can I override The Events Calendar query modifications?

Question

I am implementing some special search options that should exclude anything not of the type post. The Events Calendar is interfering and modifying the query on the fly anyway.

My query mod just looks like:

$query->post_type

And I am doing this before the query in question:

remove_action(
  'pre_get_posts',
  [ 'Tribe__Events__Query', 'pre_get_posts' ],
  50
);

remove_action(
  'parse_query',
  [ 'Tribe__Events__Query', 'parse_query' ],
  50
);

...and restoring the actions afterward to resume normal operation.

So with this debug code:

    add_filter('query', function($sql) {
        global $wp_query;
        if (isset($_GET['s']) && strpos($sql, $_GET['s']) !== false) {
            debug($wp_query->post_type);
            debug($wp_query->tax_query);
            debug($sql);
        }
        return $sql;
    });

...I can see that the post_type on the query object itself is getting set correctly, and the tax_query is at the default setting (no events calendar stuff). But by the time WordPress's query filter runs, the actual SQL that runs is:

SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS  wp_posts.ID FROM wp_posts  
WHERE 1=1  
  AND (((wp_posts.post_title LIKE '%persian%') OR (wp_posts.post_excerpt LIKE '%persian%') OR (wp_posts.post_content LIKE '%persian%')))  
  AND (wp_posts.post_password = '')  
  AND wp_posts.post_type IN ('post', 'page', 'attachment', 'tribe_venue', 'tribe_events', 'tribe-ea-record', 'service', 'facility') 
  AND (wp_posts.post_status = 'publish' OR wp_posts.post_status = 'acf-disabled' 
  OR wp_posts.post_status = 'tribe-ea-success' 
  OR wp_posts.post_status = 'tribe-ea-failed' 
  OR wp_posts.post_status = 'tribe-ea-schedule' 
  OR wp_posts.post_status = 'tribe-ea-pending' 
  OR wp_posts.post_status = 'tribe-ea-draft')  
ORDER BY wp_posts.post_title LIKE '%persian%' 
  DESC, wp_posts.post_date DESC LIMIT 0, 6

Edit 1

Here's the full WP_Query object dump:

WP_Query::__set_state(array(
   'query' => 
  array (
    's' => 'persian',
  ),
   'query_vars' => 
  array (
    's' => 'persian',
    'error' => '',
    'm' => '',
    'p' => 0,
    'post_parent' => '',
    'subpost' => '',
    'subpost_id' => '',
    'attachment' => '',
    'attachment_id' => 0,
    'name' => '',
    'static' => '',
    'pagename' => '',
    'page_id' => 0,
    'second' => '',
    'minute' => '',
    'hour' => '',
    'day' => 0,
    'monthnum' => 0,
    'year' => 0,
    'w' => 0,
    'category_name' => '',
    'tag' => '',
    'cat' => '',
    'tag_id' => '',
    'author' => '',
    'author_name' => '',
    'feed' => '',
    'tb' => '',
    'paged' => 0,
    'meta_key' => '',
    'meta_value' => '',
    'preview' => '',
    'sentence' => '',
    'title' => '',
    'fields' => '',
    'menu_order' => '',
    'embed' => '',
    'category__in' => 
    array (
    ),
    'category__not_in' => 
    array (
    ),
    'category__and' => 
    array (
    ),
    'post__in' => 
    array (
    ),
    'post__not_in' => 
    array (
    ),
    'post_name__in' => 
    array (
    ),
    'tag__in' => 
    array (
    ),
    'tag__not_in' => 
    array (
    ),
    'tag__and' => 
    array (
    ),
    'tag_slug__in' => 
    array (
    ),
    'tag_slug__and' => 
    array (
    ),
    'post_parent__in' => 
    array (
    ),
    'post_parent__not_in' => 
    array (
    ),
    'author__in' => 
    array (
    ),
    'author__not_in' => 
    array (
    ),
    'ignore_sticky_posts' => false,
    'suppress_filters' => false,
    'cache_results' => true,
    'update_post_term_cache' => true,
    'lazy_load_term_meta' => true,
    'update_post_meta_cache' => true,
    'post_type' => 'any',
    'posts_per_page' => 6,
    'nopaging' => false,
    'comments_per_page' => '50',
    'no_found_rows' => false,
    'search_terms_count' => 1,
    'search_terms' => 
    array (
      0 => 'persian',
    ),
    'search_orderby_title' => 
    array (
      0 => 'wp_posts.post_title LIKE \'%persian%\'',
    ),
    'order' => 'DESC',
  ),
   'tax_query' => 
  WP_Tax_Query::__set_state(array(
     'queries' => 
    array (
    ),
     'relation' => 'AND',
     'table_aliases' => 
    array (
    ),
     'queried_terms' => 
    array (
    ),
     'primary_table' => 'wp_posts',
     'primary_id_column' => 'ID',
  )),
   'meta_query' => 
  WP_Meta_Query::__set_state(array(
     'queries' => 
    array (
    ),
     'relation' => NULL,
     'meta_table' => NULL,
     'meta_id_column' => NULL,
     'primary_table' => NULL,
     'primary_id_column' => NULL,
     'table_aliases' => 
    array (
    ),
     'clauses' => 
    array (
    ),
     'has_or_relation' => false,
  )),
   'date_query' => false,
   'post_count' => 0,
   'current_post' => -1,
   'in_the_loop' => false,
   'comment_count' => 0,
   'current_comment' => -1,
   'found_posts' => 0,
   'max_num_pages' => 0,
   'max_num_comment_pages' => 0,
   'is_single' => false,
   'is_preview' => false,
   'is_page' => false,
   'is_archive' => false,
   'is_date' => false,
   'is_year' => false,
   'is_month' => false,
   'is_day' => false,
   'is_time' => false,
   'is_author' => false,
   'is_category' => false,
   'is_tag' => false,
   'is_tax' => false,
   'is_search' => true,
   'is_feed' => false,
   'is_comment_feed' => false,
   'is_trackback' => false,
   'is_home' => false,
   'is_404' => false,
   'is_embed' => false,
   'is_paged' => false,
   'is_admin' => false,
   'is_attachment' => false,
   'is_singular' => false,
   'is_robots' => false,
   'is_posts_page' => false,
   'is_post_type_archive' => false,
   'query_vars_hash' => '1b23d8a973f2ad41269c66f71f8365d4',
   'query_vars_changed' => false,
   'thumbnails_cached' => false,
   'stopwords' => 
  array (
    0 => 'about',
    1 => 'an',
    2 => 'are',
    3 => 'as',
    4 => 'at',
    5 => 'be',
    6 => 'by',
    7 => 'com',
    8 => 'for',
    9 => 'from',
    10 => 'how',
    11 => 'in',
    12 => 'is',
    13 => 'it',
    14 => 'of',
    15 => 'on',
    16 => 'or',
    17 => 'that',
    18 => 'the',
    19 => 'this',
    20 => 'to',
    21 => 'was',
    22 => 'what',
    23 => 'when',
    24 => 'where',
    25 => 'who',
    26 => 'will',
    27 => 'with',
    28 => 'www',
  ),
   'compat_fields' => 
  array (
    0 => 'query_vars_hash',
    1 => 'query_vars_changed',
  ),
   'compat_methods' => 
  array (
    0 => 'init_query_flags',
    1 => 'parse_tax_query',
  ),
   'tribe_is_event' => false,
   'tribe_is_multi_posttype' => false,
   'tribe_is_event_category' => false,
   'tribe_is_event_venue' => false,
   'tribe_is_event_organizer' => false,
   'tribe_is_event_query' => false,
   'tribe_is_past' => false,
   'post_type' => 'post',
   'request' => 'SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS  wp_posts.ID FROM wp_posts  WHERE 1=1  AND (((wp_posts.post_title LIKE \'%persian%\') OR (wp_posts.post_excerpt LIKE \'%persian%\') OR (wp_posts.post_content LIKE \'%persian%\')))  AND (wp_posts.post_password = \'\')  AND wp_posts.post_type IN (\'post\', \'page\', \'attachment\', \'tribe_venue\', \'tribe_events\', \'tribe-ea-record\', \'service\', \'facility\') AND (wp_posts.post_status = \'publish\' OR wp_posts.post_status = \'acf-disabled\' OR wp_posts.post_status = \'tribe-ea-success\' OR wp_posts.post_status = \'tribe-ea-failed\' OR wp_posts.post_status = \'tribe-ea-schedule\' OR wp_posts.post_status = \'tribe-ea-pending\' OR wp_posts.post_status = \'tribe-ea-draft\')  ORDER BY wp_posts.post_title LIKE \'%persian%\' DESC, wp_posts.post_date DESC LIMIT 0, 6',
   'posts' => NULL,
))

From this I see that the extra tribe-* clauses are already in there. Not totally sure where they're coming from or how to get rid of them.

Edit 2

To give a bit more detail, I'm trying to implement a dropdown that gives users the ability to specify what I'm calling a search type, which include:

1. All - default search behavior
2. Blog posts - type post only
3. Classes - posts of type tribe_events in the classes category
4. Club Events - posts of type tribe_events in the club-events category

Here's an outline of what I have so far:

In functions.php

add_action( 'pre_get_posts', function( WP_Query $query ) {
  $searchType = isset($_GET['search_type']) ? $_GET['search_type'] : '';
  SearchFilter\AbstractBase::filter_results_by_search_type($query, $searchType);
});

SearchFilter/AbstractBase.php

namespace SearchFilter;

use WP_Query;
use Timber;

abstract class AbstractBase {

  /**
   * Supported search_types and the specific class responsible for modifying the query for each type
   */
  protected static $SUPPORTED_TYPES = [
    'post' => 'wac\SearchFilter\PostFilter',
    'tribe_events_category_classes' => 'wac\SearchFilter\ClassFilter',
    'tribe_events_category_club_events' => 'wac\SearchFilter\ClubEventFilter',
  ];

  /**
   * The instance of SearchFilter\AbstractBase to pull queries from
   */
  protected static $filteredSearchQuery;

  /**
   * Modify $query to limit search results to the specified $type.
   * Supported types are enumerated in the $SUPPORTED_TYPES property.
   */
  public static function filter_results_by_search_type(WP_Query $query, $type = '') {
    // only affect general search queries
    if ( ! is_admin() && $query->is_main_query() && $query->is_search() ) {

      // figure out what type of search this is
      if (isset(static::$SUPPORTED_TYPES[$type])) {
        $class = static::$SUPPORTED_TYPES[$type];
        $filter = new $class($query);
      } else {
        $filter = new DefaultFilter($query);
      }

      $filter->modify_query();

      static::$filteredSearchQuery = $filter;
    }
  }

  /**
   * Constructor
   * @param  WP_Query $query the WP_Query object to modify
   */
  protected function __construct(WP_Query $query) {
    $this->query = $query;
  }

  /**
   * Returns the modified query
   */
  abstract public function modify_query();

  public function get_posts() {
    $this->override_tribe_hooks();
    $posts = Timber::get_posts();
    $this->restore_tribe_hooks();

    return $posts;
  }

  protected function hide_recurring_events() {
    $this->query->set( 'tribeHideRecurrence', true );
    $this->query->set( 'eventDisplay', 'upcoming' );
    $this->query->tribe_is_multi_posttype = true;
    $this->query->set('meta_query', array(
      'relation' => 'OR',
      array(
        'key' => '_EventStartDate',
        'value' => date('Y-m-d h:i:s'),
        'compare' => '>=',
        'type' => 'DATE'
      ),
      array(
        'key' => '_EventEndDate',
        'value' => date('Y-m-d h:i:s'),
        'compare' => '>',
        'type' => 'DATE'
      ),
      array(
        'relation' => 'AND',
        array(
          'key' => '_EventStartDate',
          'compare' => 'NOT EXISTS',
          'type' => 'DATE'
        ),
        array(
          'key' => '_EventEndDate',
          'compare' => 'NOT EXISTS',
          'type' => 'DATE'
        )
      )
    ));
  }

  /**
   * Remove default The Events Calendar hook for querying events
   */
  protected function override_tribe_hooks() {
    remove_action(
      'pre_get_posts',
      [ 'Tribe__Events__Query', 'pre_get_posts' ],
      static::TRIBE_ACTION_PRIORITY
    );

    remove_action(
      'parse_query',
      [ 'Tribe__Events__Query', 'parse_query' ],
      static::TRIBE_ACTION_PRIORITY
    );
  }

  protected function restore_tribe_hooks() {
    add_action(
      'pre_get_posts',
      [ 'Tribe__Events__Query', 'pre_get_posts' ],
      static::TRIBE_ACTION_PRIORITY
    );

    add_action(
      'parse_query',
      [ 'Tribe__Events__Query', 'parse_query' ],
      static::TRIBE_ACTION_PRIORITY
    );
  }

SearchFilter/DefaultFilter.php

namespace SearchFilter;

use Timber;

class DefaultFilter extends AbstractBase {
  public function modify_query() {
    $this->hide_recurring_events();
  }

  public function get_posts() {
    return Timber::get_posts();
  }
}

SearchFilter/PostFilter.php

namespace SearchFilter;

use WP_Query;

class PostFilter extends AbstractBase {
  public function modify_query() {
    $this->query->query_vars->post_type = ['post'];
  }
}

search.php

$data['posts'] = SearchFilter\AbstractBase::get_filtered_query()->get_posts();
// render posts

BTW, Timber is a low-level plugin that provides a more OO-friendly interface around get_posts and the like. I've used it on tons of WP projects and it never gets in the way like this, so I don't think it's the issue here.

What am I missing?

Answer 1

I managed to do something similar using the query parameter supress_filters = true.

Refer to Codex for more explanation on how this works: https://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags/get_posts#Parameters