How do you make a custom post type items automatically delete items 3 months after publication?

Question

I'd like somer code that I can place in my functions.php file that will only modify the specified custom post type.

I have already tried several plugins, but all of them have more features than I need. It's overkill to mess with things I don't want them to mess with.

Ideally, the code will:

• Set up a daily cron job for 00:00 (at night)
• Fire a custom function that queries the database for the custom post type and compares its publication date with current date.
• If the custom post type is older than 3 months (the custom function returns true), then it will call wp_delete_post() for the post's ID.

Unfortunately, I can't put it all together myself.

Is there a good (simple) plugin that does this? A code snippet you have off the top of your head?

Answer 1

add_action( 'wp', 'delete_expired_coupons_daily' );
function delete_expired_coupons_daily() {
if ( ! wp_next_scheduled( 'delete_expired_coupons' ) ) {
    wp_schedule_event( time(), 'daily', 'delete_expired_coupons');
 }
}
add_action( 'delete_expired_coupons', 'delete_expired_coupons_callback' );
function delete_expired_coupons_callback() {
   $args = array(
    'post_type' => 'coupon',
    'posts_per_page' => -1
);

$coupons = new WP_Query($args);
if ($coupons->have_posts()):
    while($coupons->have_posts()): $coupons->the_post();  
       // get the post publish date  
       $test = get_the_date();
       // convert it to strto 
       $converter = strtotime($test);
       // add 3 months to it
       $deletedate = date(strtotime("+3 month", $converter));
       // check if today is more than 3 months of publish date
        if (time() > $deletedate) {
            wp_delete_post(get_the_ID());
            //Use wp_delete_post(get_the_ID(),true) to delete the post from the trash too.                  
        }

    endwhile;
endif; 
}

Put it in the functions.php. This in theory would do the job. Copied from Posts to expire (deleted) after a date and changed the comparison.

Change the increment to 3 mins/seconds for testing by

     $test = get_the_date('F j, Y G:i:s');
     $converter = strtotime($test);
     $deletedate = date(strtotime("+3 minutes", $converter));

Use this plugin to test it. https://wordpress.org/plugins/trigger-scheduled-events/

Answer 2

Well there is two ways of doing it in that i can think of...

The simplest seems to be the wp_cron command.

http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_cron

And in your functions you can add some custom SQL (or other) to update your database with whatever you want...

Alternatively you can try this plugin http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-cron-control/ And make it do you want.

I can't provide the excact SQL you need but with these two you should be able to run scheduled unattended events on your site.