Support boolean strings for the 'public', 'archived', 'mature', 'spam' and 'deleted' attributes in WP_Site_Query

[birgire]

According to the documentation for the WP_Site_Query class:

*     @type int          $public           Limit results to public sites. Accepts '1' or '0'. Default empty. 
*     @type int          $archived         Limit results to archived sites. Accepts '1' or '0'. Default empty. 
*     @type int          $mature           Limit results to mature sites. Accepts '1' or '0'. Default empty. 
*     @type int          $spam             Limit results to spam sites. Accepts '1' or '0'. Default empty. 
*     @type int          $deleted          Limit results to deleted sites. Accepts '1' or '0'. Default empty. 

these attributes accepts values '1' and '0' (also 1 and 0 to be more specific).

I would suggest adding support for general boolean values so these attributes can also support e.g. true, false, 'true', 'false' .

Currently each attribute is handled like this:

if ( is_numeric( $this->query_vars['archived'] ) ) { 
	$archived                               = absint( $this->query_vars['archived'] ); 
	$this->sql_clauses['where']['archived'] = $wpdb->prepare( "archived = %d ", $archived ); 
}

Here we see why e.g. true doesn't work, because is_numeric( true ) is false and the SQL modification is skipped.

I want to suggest using e.g. wp_validate_boolean() for the validation.

Here's an example:

if ( isset( $this->query_vars['archived'] ) ) { 
    $archived                               = wp_validate_boolean( $this->query_vars['archived'] ); 
    $this->sql_clauses['where']['archived'] = $wpdb->prepare( "archived = %d ", $archived ); 
} 

or we could be more specific with:

if ( isset( $this->query_vars['archived'] ) ) { 
    $archived                               = wp_validate_boolean( $this->query_vars['archived'] ) ? 1 : 0; 
    $this->sql_clauses['where']['archived'] = $wpdb->prepare( "archived = %d ", $archived ); 
} 

etc.

I added a patch as a starting example. There I added @type mixed to the documentation because that's how the input of wp_validate_boolean() is documented (it can be a general boolean value like int, bool or string).

[desrosj]

Thanks for the ticket @birgire! This was discussed in a recent multisite ticket scrub. The consensus was adding support for booleans was a good move. true/false strings could also be acceptable. We want to make sure we keep the code simple though.

The patch looks like it needs to be refreshed. It failed to apply cleanly to trunk for me. Would you mind refreshing the patch? I think we would also want to include some unit tests as well.

[desrosj]

Related #35791

[birgire]

@desrosj I will look into it

[birgire]

Version #2

[birgire]

Test

[birgire]

I updated the patch with a ! is_null() checks because the defaults are null.

Added tests as well, for the 'public' input argument with the values true, 'true', false and 'false' based on the existing siteQueyry.php tests.

[desrosj]

Following up on the discussion in today's ticket scrub. @birgire will combine the tests and fix patches into one. Also, some feedback on the patch.

• The empty line between the inline documentation and the function in the tests needs to be removed.
• The tests only test the public parameter. The others should be tested as well.

[birgire]

Thanks for the follow up @desrosj

In 37937.4.patch​:

• Added true, 'true', 1, '1' and false, 'false', 0, '0' tests for all the parameters, i.e. 'public', 'archived', 'mature', 'spam' and 'deleted'.

• Removed the extra empty lines.

• Combined patch and tests into a single file.