media_handle_sideload does not initialize the caption/excerpt value

[dglingren]

In /wp-admin/includes/media.php changes have been made in the media_handle_upload() function to initialize the caption/excerpt value after an upload. Here's the code:

<?php
        // Construct the attachment array
        $attachment = array_merge( array(
                'post_mime_type' => $type,
                'guid' => $url,
                'post_parent' => $post_id,
                'post_title' => $title,
                'post_content' => $content,
                'post_excerpt' => $excerpt,
        ), $post_data );

Corresponding changes should be made in the media_handle_sideload() function, which still has:

<?php
        // Construct the attachment array.
        $attachment = array_merge( array(
                'post_mime_type' => $type,
                'guid' => $url,
                'post_parent' => $post_id,
                'post_title' => $title,
                'post_content' => $content,
        ), $post_data )

[Presskopp]

initial patch

[aaroncampbell]

Looking into this it seems like the patch tries to use $excerpt which doesn't exist inside media_handle_sideload(). It also looks like the $content variable in sideload is the same as the $excerpt variable media_handle_upload(). To bring parity between the two is seems like that needs to go into post_excerpt and the functionality for filling in $content needs to be brought over from media_handle_upload().

Having said all that: I'm not sure of the historical context here or why these seem to be treating content/excerpt differently. Some more digging is needed, but I'm removing the has-patch tag since the patch here won't fix the issue.

[WayneAllen]

As of WordPress 5.2 media_handle_sideload does not set the caption correctly. It attempts to put the caption in post_content rather than post_excerpt.