Attach image to post in Wordpress XMLRPC

Question

I am using XMLRPC to do posts to Wordpress. I am having issues posting thumbnails, after debugging wordpress code I see that my issue is caused by the fact that the image is not attached to the post. I must do this without patching wordpress or using PHP, only iwth XMLRPC.

I can upload an image and get the ID of the image. Other point that confuses me is how do you attach an image to a post that you did not posted yet because you wait for the image to upload? I am supposed to upload image then post ,then using the image id and the post id do an update on the image metadata?

Edit: the code in wordpress that is problematic is this check

if ( $thumbnail_html = wp_get_attachment_image( $thumbnail_id, 'thumbnail' ) )

and my assumption it is that it fails because the image is Unattached, if i fix that code all is fine but I can't patch the WP of my application users(so this is not a solution)

Answer 1

Yes it is possible to do it, if Wordpress version is 3.5 or greater,when using the code for uploading file/image you can set the post_id. The flow I used for new posts with featured images is like this:

1. use the newPost function and post the content without the featured image and also set publish to false, record the post_id returned by this

2. upload the image and set the post_id to the id of the post just posted, record the image_id

3. when done edit the post and set the wp_post_thumbnail equal to the image_id you just uploaded and also set publish to true(if needed)

Important: The mime type is important, it must be "image/jpg" or "image/png" please see documentation, if mime type is worng like "jpg" attaching will fail.

Tip: For debugging, if you get a generic error from wordpress and you can't figure out why you can check the wordpress code and even edit it, adding debugging/tracing calls and hopefully you can figure out the cause.

This is an example of a post with category, image and tags. It requires class-IXR.php
https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/blob/master/wp-includes/class-IXR.php
and mime_content_type function
https://github.com/caiofior/storebaby/blob/master/magmi/plugins/extra/general/socialnotify/wp/mimetype.php

        $client = new IXR_Client($url);
        $content = array(
            'post_status' => 'draft',
            'post_type' => 'post',
            'post_title' => 'Title',
            'post_content' => 'Message',
             // categories ids
            'terms' => array('category' => array(3))
        );
        $params = array(0, $username, $password, $content);
        $client->query('wp.newPost', $params);
        $post_id = $client->getResponse();

        $content = array(
            'name' => basename('/var/www/sb/img.jpeg'),
            'type' => mime_content_type('/var/www/sb/img.jpeg'),
            'bits' => new IXR_Base64(file_get_contents('/var/www/sb/img.jpeg')),
            true
        );
        $client->query('metaWeblog.newMediaObject', 1, $username, $password, $content);
        $media = $client->getResponse();
        $content = array(
            'post_status' => 'publish',
            // Tags
            'mt_keywords' => 'tag1, tag2, tag3',
            'wp_post_thumbnail' => $media['id']
        );
        $client->query('metaWeblog.editPost', $post_id, $username, $password, $content, true);

Answer 2

My version if you want to use only wp.newPost and wp.editPost

include_once( ABSPATH . WPINC . '/class-IXR.php' );
include_once( ABSPATH . WPINC . '/class-wp-http-ixr-client.php' );

    $usr = 'username_on_the_server_side';
    $pwd = 'password_on_the_server_side';
    $xmlrpc = 'server side xmlrpc.php url';
    $client = new IXR_Client($xmlrpc);

    ////////////  IMAGE UPLOAD AND ATTACHMENT POST CREATION  ///////////
       $img_attach = 'link to the image';
       $img_attach_content = array(
                'name' => basename($img_attach),
                'type' => mime_content_type($img_attach),
                'bits' => new IXR_Base64(file_get_contents($img_attach)),
                        );
        $status = $client->query( 'wp.uploadFile','1',  $usr, $pwd, $img_attach_content );
        $image_returnInfo = $client ->getResponse();

   ////////////  POST CREATION  ///////////

        $custom_fields = array( 
                          array( 'key' => 'blabla1', 'value' => 'blabla1_value' ),
                          array( 'key' => 'blabla12', 'value' => 'blabla1_value2')
                          ); 
        $post_content = array(
            'post_type' => 'post',
            'post_status' => 'draft', //for now
            'post_title' => 'XMLRPC Test',
            'post_author' => 3,
            'post_name' => 'XMLRPC Test',
            'post_content' => 'XMLRPC Test Content',
            'custom_fields' => $custom_fields
        );

    $res = $client -> query('wp.newPost',1, $usr, $pwd, $post_content);
    $postID =  $client->getResponse();
    if(!$res)
        echo 'Something went wrong....';
    else {
            echo 'The Project Created Successfully('.$res.')<br>Post ID is '.$postID.'<br>';
    }

   ////////////  Image Post Attachment Edit  ///////////
      $img_attach_content2 = array(
                'post_type'  => 'attachment',   
                'post_status' => 'inherit', 
                'post_title' => $postID, 
                'post_name' => $postID, 
                'post_parent'  => $postID,
                'guid'    => $image_returnInfo['url'],
                'post_content'   => '',
                'post_mime_type' => 'image/jpg'
                 );

     $res2 = $client -> query('wp.editPost', 0, $usr, $pwd,      $image_returnInfo['id'], $img_attach_content2);

    $postIDimg =  $client->getResponse();    

    ////////////   POST EDIT  ///////////

      $post_content2 = array(
                 'post_status' => 'publish', //publish
                'wp_post_thumbnail' => $image_returnInfo['id'],
                'custom_fields' =>    array( 'key' => '_thumbnail_id', 'value' =>  $image_returnInfo['id'] ) 
            );
            $media2= $client->query('wp.editPost',0, $usr, $pwd, $postID, $post_content2);