Remove `@access private` from cache priming functions.

[peterwilsoncc]

WordPress includes and makes heavy use of several functions for priming object caches. These functions reduce the number of database calls by querying the database for these objects in bulk.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can't see why these functions are marked private. Furthermore, I think plugins should be actively encouraged to use them..

I suggest the @access private delegation be removed from the following functions:

• _prime_post_caches()
• _prime_term_caches()
• _prime_comment_caches()
• _prime_network_caches()
• _prime_site_caches()
• _get_non_cached_ids()

[desrosj]

I can't find it in the handbook at the moment, but I believe the idea with the preceding _ underscore was for developers to easily know when a function should be considered private.

If we're removing @access private from these, would it make sense to deprecate the current functions in favor of prime_post_caches(), prime_term_caches(), etc.?

[peterwilsoncc]

A precedent I found in [46602] for #48251 retained the underscore prefix while removing the private delegation.

In the previous ticket, the functions in question appeared 13249 times in the plugin repo. In this case the functions in question appear 237 times in the plugin plugin repo. The most frequently used ​being post priming in some 5M+ installed plugins.

I can be convinced either way but worry deprecating the functions would create a lot of noise in logs to avoid a precedent that has already been set.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Good point, if we haven't dropped the underscore from _doing_it_wrong(), _deprecated_function(), seems OK to keep it here too.

I suppose we could also introduce non-underscored aliases like prime_post_caches() or wp_prime_post_caches(), but I'm not sure if there's a strong reason for that at this time, so keeping the current names would be my preference.

Removed @access private from below functions (as per ticket description):

• _prime_post_caches()
• _prime_term_caches()
• _prime_comment_caches()
• _prime_network_caches()
• _prime_site_caches()
• _get_non_cached_ids()

Trac ticket: 56386

@costdev Changes are pushed as per suggestion

[mukesh27]

The PR got enough approval.

Assign to Peter for final review.

[desrosj]

Agreed that there's no strong reason for deprecating, and that it would potentially cause a lot of noise needlessly. If this was something that was done more often and we documented this practice more openly, I'd feel a bit stronger towards renaming/deprecating for consistency.

Keeping the names as is sounds good 👍🏼

[peterwilsoncc]

In 53944:

Cache API, Docs: Remove private delegation from cache priming functions.

Remove the private delegation from the following cache priming functions for various object types:

• _prime_post_caches()
• _prime_term_caches()
• _prime_comment_caches()
• _prime_network_caches()
• _prime_site_caches()
• _get_non_cached_ids()

Plugins and themes are now encouraged to use these functions to improve the performance of their code by reducing the number of database queries.

Props robinwpdeveloper, desrosj, SergeyBiryukov, mukesh27, costdev.
Fixes #56386.

Merged in https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/53944 / 541b4eb6462c8f48e235590a9be79ebc4954f66e

[desrosj]

This should be mentioned in the miscellaneous dev note.