Wordpress how to prevent duplicate post by checking if post title exist before running "wp_insert_post"?

Question

I have a wordpress site that connects to a soap server. The problem is every time I run the script the wp_insert_post is using the same result again.

I would like to check if existing post_title matches the value from $title then if they match, prevent wp_insert_post from using the same value again.

Here's the code:

try {
    $client = new SoapClient($wsdl, array('login' => $username, 'password' => $password));
    } catch(Exception $e) {
      die('Couldn\'t establish connection to weblink service.');
    }
$publications = $client->GetPublicationSummaries();
foreach ($publications->GetPublicationSummariesResult->PublicationSummaries->PublicationSummary as $publication_summary) {

    // get the complete publication from the webservice
    $publication = $client->getPublication(array('PublicationId' => $publication_summary->ID))->GetPublicationResult->Publication;
    
    // get all properties and put them in an array
    $properties = array();
    foreach ($publication->Property as $attribute => $value) {
        $properties[$attribute] = $value;
    }
    
    // Assemble basic title from properties
    $title = $properties['Address']->Street . ' ' . $properties['Address']->HouseNumber . $properties['Address']->HouseNumberExtension . ', ' . $properties['Address']->City->_;
}

$my_post = array(
    'post_title'=>$title,
    'post_content'=>'my contents',
    'post_status'=>'draft',
    'post_type'=>'skarabeepublication',
    'post_author'=>1,
);
wp_insert_post($my_post);

Thank you for any help.

Answer 1

You can use get_page_by_title() as it supports custom post types now.

if (!get_page_by_title($title, OBJECT, 'skarabeepublication')) :

    $my_post = array(
        'post_title'=>$title,
        'post_content'=>'my contents',
        'post_status'=>'draft',
        'post_type'=>'skarabeepublication',
        'post_author'=>1,
    );
    wp_insert_post($my_post);

endif;

Codex information here

Answer 2

Surprised not to see mention of post_exists function in wp-includes/post.php. See entry on wpseek. There is no entry in the codex. At it's simplest it works like get_page_by_title but returns a post id (or 0 if not found) instead of the object (or null).

$post_id = post_exists( $my_title );
if (!$post_id) {
    // code here
}

Answer 3

Sorry for the late response. I used what Robot says in the comment and this solved my problem. Thanks

$post_if = $wpdb->get_var("SELECT count(post_title) FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_title like '$title_from_soap'");
if($post_if < 1){
    //code here
}