wp_insert_user requires user_login when ID is given

[johnprestonsoapmedia]

When passing an array containing an ID key to wp_insert_user, the local variable $update is set to true so that various checks throughout the function can be disabled.

Line 1445:

 if ( empty( $user_login ) )

checks for the existence of the user_login key but does not include the check for !$update. This means that if an array of user meta to be updated is passed in with an ID, the array must also contain a user_login, otherwise a WP_Error('empty_user_login') will be thrown.

In the case that ID is passed in but not user_login, this exception should not be thrown as user_login is redundant: user_login can be determined from the ID, and logic earlier in the function (see lines 1411 onwards) determines that the user already exists and is to be updated.

[johnbillion]

Thanks for the report, @johnprestonsoapmedia, and welcome to WordPress Trac.

This does appear to be valid, but the same issue is not present when you call the wp_update_user() function which you should ideally use when updating a user. Is there a particular reason in this scenario why you're not using wp_update_user()?

Regardless, it looks on the surface like this should be fixed.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Related: #25745

[johnprestonsoapmedia]

Replying to johnbillion:

Thanks for the report, @johnprestonsoapmedia, and welcome to WordPress Trac.

This does appear to be valid, but the same issue is not present when you call the wp_update_user() function which you should ideally use when updating a user. Is there a particular reason in this scenario why you're not using wp_update_user()?

Regardless, it looks on the surface like this should be fixed.

Hi @johnbillion. The documentation for wp_update_user ​https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_update_user indicates that it should be used when updating a user only and when sending an email is desired, whereas wp_insert_user ​https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_insert_user should be used when creating or updating and when an email should not be sent.

In my use case I wanted to ensure no email was sent, so I used wp_insert_user.

[DJPaul]

Please see 40497.02.patch. This is definitely an interesting use of this function; removing the update logic is probably untenable, so the patch addresses the reported issue.

[dd32]

Replying to johnprestonsoapmedia:

The documentation for wp_update_user ​https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_update_user indicates that it should be used when updating a user only and when sending an email is desired, whereas wp_insert_user ​https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_insert_user should be used when creating or updating and when an email should not be sent.

Just noting that in this case the documentation looks incorrect - and it should be noted that the codex is a wiki and community powered, it's not "official" documentation. The Developer documentation for ​wp_insert_user() does make reference to the fact that passing an ID will cause it to be updated, but the intentional usage is not to bypass sending an email, that's just a side effect (that should probably be fixed).