delete_post_{post_type}

[GunGeekATX]

Seeing as we have a save_post_{post_type} action, for convenience and consistency, we should also have delete_post_{post_type}.

Since there are before_delete_post and deleted_post actions, the attached patch also contains actions for these with the post_type.

[GunGeekATX]

Proposed patch

[SergeyBiryukov]

Related: #30940

[mattheweppelsheimer]

+1.

Among other uses, this will be very useful for transient-clearing processes organized by post type.

[DrewAPicture]

31813.diff​ refreshes the patch after the move to post-functions.php.

I also went ahead and passed the post type value as a second parameter to all three hooks since it's reasonably likely we'd end up adding them later anyway.

[DrewAPicture]

Refresh + docs

[DrewAPicture]

Actually, hmm. I took this ticket at face value to do the refresh and fix the docs, but it occurs to me on second thought that perhaps instead of essentially adding duplicate hooks here we should instead simply pass the post type value to the existing hooks?

I recognize the precedent in having pairs of hooks (generic and post-type-specific) but I wonder if it's really that useful to add a second hook (plus forever-maintenance) when we could instead add a second parameter to something we're already maintaining.

[mattheweppelsheimer]

I believe that it is very useful to have the delete_post{post_type} hook in addition to extending delete_post to pass the post type.

Here's my use case:

My (rather infant) transient-clearing manager ​Scrubber allows you to register a transient to be cleared when any action hook is fired.

In the places where I'm using this to update cached post data when a post is deleted, I have been just using delete_post. That works — but will clear transients much more often than needed that way. It's not the end of the world, but it would be nice to be more targeted, and limit the scope of the transient clearing.

I've tried to figure out how I could use delete_post differently in this context if it passed the post type, and I don't see a way that I like.

The transient-clearing method ​`Scrubber::scrub()` does not currently accept any parameters. I could add calls to doing_action() and interpret parameters from there, but that would open up a pandora's box — adding hook-specific logic to a method that might run on any hook — and make it much more complicated and less manageable.

Whereas, a delete_post{post_type} hook will allow that simple targeting, without complicating the method's logic.

I'm wide open to suggestions if there's something I haven't thought of.

[johnbillion]

While I rarely argue against the addition of hooks that have been proposed to solve a demonstrated problem, I do think that in this case these hooks are superfluous and don't provide enough value to warrant their introduction.

The Scrubber plugin suffers from a fundamental problem whereby it relies on enough context being available in the name of an action hook to clear an associated transient. If, for example, there's a requirement for a transient to be cleared whenever a post in a given category is edited, then Scrubber doesn't have the means to do this because it lacks the ability to inspect any of the contextual parameters passed to a hook.

Adding a delete_post_{$post_type} hook will fix the particular problem of clearing a transient when a post of a given type is deleted, but Scrubber is still left with its lack of contextual control.

The existing delete_post, before_delete_post, and deleted_post hooks are plenty sufficient, and context is available via the $postid parameter passed to each one.

Thanks for the patch and discussion, GunGeekATX and mattheweppelsheimer, but I'm recommending this to be closed as wontfix.

[DrewAPicture]

Closing as wontfix. See comment:10.

[mattheweppelsheimer]

FWIW you have persuaded me as well.

johnbillion I hadn't seen that flaw in Scrubber, but now it's quite clear thanks to your analysis. It's also something I can address thanks to some tips from Drew in Slack.

For anyone else who stumbles on this:

add_action( ‘delete_post’, function() use ( $id ) {
    $post_type = get_post_type( $id );
    do_action( "delete_post_{$post_type}”, $id );
} );

As drew said, "boom".