Programmatically creating posts based on external JSON feed (asynchronously)

Question

I am currently trying to create a Wordpress plugin which create posts in the Wordpress database based on data from an external JSON API. As an example this NewsAPI feed could be used:

https://newsapi.org/v2/top-headlines?sources=techcrunch&apiKey=81143272da6c48d58bc38fe80dd110d6

The plugin I have written decodes the JSON data by using json_decode and loops through the article object in the JSON feed. Finally, the posts is being inserted programmatically using wp_insert_post:

<?php

/**
* Plugin Name: Automatic News Feed Importer
* Version: 1.0.0
*/

function news_importer() {
$url = "https://newsapi.org/v2/top-headlines?sources=techcrunch&apiKey=81143272da6c48d58bc38fe80dd110d6";
$response = wp_remote_get( $url );
$data = json_decode( wp_remote_retrieve_body( $response ) );

foreach( $data->articles as $news ) {
    $post_title = $news->title;
    $post_content = $news->content;
    $post_date = $news->publishedAt;
    
    $post = array(
        'post_title' => $post_title,
        'post_content' => $post_content,
        'post_date' => $post_date,
        'post_status' => 'publish',
        'post_type' => 'post'
    );
    
    wp_insert_post( $post );

    }
}

My problem is that when the plugin is activated, no posts are creating and added to the database. When a new post is uploaded and appearing in the feed it has to be uploaded automatically (asynchronously).

Any ideas on why this isn't working?

Answer 1

By checking if the 'products' object exists in an if statement and looping through the objects (as in the code above), the function seems to be working:

function json_to_post() {
  $response = wp_remote_get('https://dummyjson.com/products');
  $json_data = wp_remote_retrieve_body($response);
  $data = json_decode($json_data, true);

  if (isset($data['products'])) {
  $products = $data['products'];
  foreach ($products as $post) {
    $title = $post['title'];
    $content = $post['description'];

    $new_post = array(
      'post_title' => $title,
      'post_content' => $content,
      'post_status' => 'publish',
      'post_type' => 'post'
  );
    wp_insert_post($new_post);
  }
 }
}
add_action('init', 'json_to_post');

Answer 2

There's a ready built plugin that does exactly this:

https://wpgetapi.com/downloads/custom-post-import/