Double spaces in term names can cause problems

[smerriman]

Create a tag called 'test term'.

Use XML-RPC to create a post with a tag of:

test  term

(two spaces). You'll get an error thrown, with the post not created:

A term with the name already exists in this taxonomy

This appears to be due to the _insert_post function in XML-RPC using get_term_by( 'name', $term_name, $taxonomy );, which is returning false - thus it tries to create the term as new, and fails.

Most other aspects of WP seem to filter the term name to strip double spaces first - is that what is necessary here? Or could the issue affect more than just XML-RPC?

[desrosj]

@boonebgorges Do you have any interest in working this one?

[boonebgorges]

No :) I'd be happy to review a patch if someone wants to dig into the root cause.

[andraganescu]

Hey there,

To make creating a patch easier it’d be good to have a unit test showing the problem.This test file tests/phpunit/tests/xmlrpc/wp/newPost.php has examples of creating posts with terms.

[shreya0shrivastava]

Tested on WordPress 7.1-alpha-62161-src — this bug no longer reproduces.

Reproduction steps taken:

1. Created a post_tag term test term (single space) via wp_insert_term()
2. Loaded all IXR dependencies via glob( ABSPATH . 'wp-includes/IXR/class-IXR-*.php' )
3. Instantiated wp_xmlrpc_server directly
4. Called wp_newPost() with terms_names => [ 'post_tag' => ['test term'] ] (double space)

Post was created successfully with a post ID returned — no A term with the name already exists error thrown.