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I am using the hook publish_post to run my code where I need the post meta of the just published post. But the post meta value I am looking for is somehow not available at this point of execution. On checking the wp_postmeta table, I found that my meta key value hasn't been created yet. Also, I want this to work for a post published for the first time. Is there any other hook that can give me access to it?

function push_notification($post_id) 
{ 
    $ref_ids = get_post_meta($post_id,'ref_id'); 

    if($ref_ids) 
    { 
        //my code goes here 
    } 
} 

add_action('publish_post','push_notification');
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  • Why don't you hook onto save_post and check for post_status equal to publish, i.e if ( 'publish' == $post->post_status ) ..etc and if you only want to run this function on newly published posts, not re-published/updated posts you could look at wp_transition_post_status and check for $old_status against $new_status – Adam Oct 19 '12 at 11:52
  • @toscho The get_post_meta($post_id,'ref_id') returns nothing. Therefore, my code is never executed. – Poulomi Nag Oct 19 '12 at 11:53
  • @PoulomiNag Try one of the methods listed here and report back please. It would also be useful to see how you add the post meta value. – fuxia♦ Oct 19 '12 at 12:00
  • @userabuser Same problem with save_post. No post meta available. I should have mentioned before that I want this to work for a post published for the first time. And save_post gives access to post meta only at updates. – Poulomi Nag Oct 19 '12 at 12:27
  • 3
    I tested your code and it works just fine. The problem is elsewhere. That is, the problem is with how and maybe when you are setting the 'ref_id' postmeta value. At least one other person has wondered about that code already. Please edit your question to include the code that creates the 'ref_id' value. – s_ha_dum Oct 19 '12 at 13:48
4

Solved it! Used save_post to run push_notification() as well as to run the function save_post_meta() that saves my post meta. The problem occurred coz push_notification() gets fired before save_post_meta() due to which the meta wasn't being saved and therefore it remained inaccessible. Just changed priorities of the functions to make it work like so :

function push_notification($post_id) 
{ 
  $ref_ids = get_post_meta($post_id,'ref_id'); 

  if($ref_ids) 
  { 
    //my code goes here 
   } 
} 
add_action('save_post','push_notification',11,1);

function save_post_meta($post_id,$post)
{
   //check for nonces and current user capabilities

   $ref_id = sanitize_html_class($_POST['ref_id']);
   update_post_meta($post_id,'ref_id',$ref_id);
}
add_action('save_post','save_post_meta',10,2);

function no_notification()
{
  remove_action('save_post','push_notification',11,1);
}
add_action('publish_to_publish','no_notification');

The last function no_notification() makes sure that push_notification() gets fired only when a post is first created and not for updates.

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You seem to be concerned only with new posts (as previously-created posts will have the postmeta attached and available when transitions are run), and want to do push_notification on newly-created posts only if a certain postmeta value is present. Correct?

Create your own hook in the function that saves your postmeta, after all of your update_postmeta calls, using do_action(). The postmeta will have been saved at that point, and you can test.

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0
2

I also noticed that when you call get_post_meta() within add_action('publish_post',..) no post meta is returned.

This is because when you publish the post and 'publish_post' is called, the post meta is not yet saved in the database. update_post_meta() (the function that saves the post meta in the database) is called after 'publish_post'. That's why it works if you save as draft first and then publishes.

To avoid that issue I use this kind of code:

$post_meta_value = get_post_meta($post_id,'meta_key',true);
if($post_meta_value==''){ $post_meta_value = $_POST['meta_key']; }

This will get your value from the $_POST when you click on Publish button.
The $_POST['meta_key'] can be different depending on how you set your post meta or custom field in your back-end. I'm using the ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) plugin and it would be $_POST['fields']['field_52fae7b2b4033'].

Hope that helps.

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