"internal" post status practical usage?

[malthert]

​https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/register_post_status/

has an "internal" param, however I couldn't find what practical use/meaning this has. What happens if we set "internal" true in practical terms when doing a WP_Query? Does it affect anything else besides WP_Query?

It seems this is legacy and without any practical use? (maybe deprecate and remove?)

[ironprogrammer]

Thanks for the ticket, @malthert!

Marking dev-feedback for component/committer input.

[callumbw95]

Hi @malthert,
I have done a bit of digging into the code to investigate whether or not this is still in use, and it appears that whilst it is not that useful when developing extended functionality within WordPress, it is still in use in regards to core functionality. For example the internal argument is used for a variety of the out the box statuses including; trash, auto-draft, inherit, request-pending, etc. As of such I don't believe that this argument needs to be deprecated as it is still in use today.
However, past the fact that this is in use within core, I am not actually sure of what benefit this argument has in regards to post statuses. But it might be that it is kept in for parity with other register functions within WordPress?

[mindctrl]

As Callum pointed out, the internal bit is still used internally by WordPress. The is_post_status_viewable() function is but one example. As such, we can't deprecate or remove it without a broader refactor. I'm proposing we close this ticket to help clean up Trac, but feel free to reopen if you disagree.