Download file using cURL into wp-includes/uploads

Question

I have a save post hook that looks like this, it should download youtube thumbnail to wp-includes/uploads base on video id provided. But it doesnt save anything.

 add_filter( 'save_post', function () {
  $video_id = 'VSB4wGIdDwo';


$path_to_save_thumbnails = '/wp-includes/upload/';




$ch = curl_init();

 $thubnail_types = array('0', '1', '2', '3','default',
                  'sddefault', 'mqdefault',
                  'hqdefault', 'maxresdefault');

foreach($thubnail_types as $type) 
{
  $youtube_thumb_url = 
'http://img.youtube.com/vi/'.$video_id.'/'.$type.'.jpg';

echo "Downloading thumbnail [$type]." . PHP_EOL;
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $youtube_thumb_url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

$image = curl_exec($ch);
$info = curl_getinfo($ch);


if($info['http_code'] == 200) {

    file_put_contents($path_to_save_thumbnails.$type.'.jpg', $image);
}
}

});

Answer 1

There is special wp_upload_bits() function to upload the content to the 'uploads' directory. Also, there is no such directory as /wp-includes/upload/.

The code was not tested!

<?php

$video_id = 'xxxxxxxxxxxxx';

$thumbnail_types = array(
    '0',
    '1',
    '2',
    '3',
    'default',
    'sddefault',
    'mqdefault',
    'hqdefault', 
    'maxresdefault',
);

foreach( $thumbnail_types as $type ) {

    $file_name = $type . '.jpg';

    $youtube_thumb_url = 'http://img.youtube.com/vi/' . $video_id . '/' . $file_name;

    $thumbnail_file = file_get_contents( $youtube_thumb_url );

    // Where the magic happens
    $uploaded_file = wp_upload_bits( $file_name, null, $thumbnail_file );

    // check the result
    echo '<pre>';
    print_r( $uploaded_file ) ; // path, URL, file type and error message
    echo '</pre>';

}

Answer 2

I'd advice you to use WordPress' API functionality for this, like media_sideload_image(), media_handle_sideload() or media_handle_upload(). Just to name some of the obvious ones, in the end it is depending on what your goal is. You'll find use cases at the WordPress Developer Reference or on here.