Add support for querying by an exact date with WP_Date_Query

[sean212]

WP_Date_Query lacks the ability to query for posts with a specific date. Currently, to query for a post with a specific date string you would need to break it down to multiple arguments:

<?php
$date = strtotime( '2023-08-13 20:12:50' );

$posts = new WP_Query( [
  'date_query' => [
    'year' => date( 'Y', $date ),
    'month' => date( 'm', $date ),  
    'day' => date( 'd', $date ),
    'hour' => date( 'H', $date ),
    'minute' => date( 'i', $date ),
    'second' => date( 's', $date ),
  ],
] );

There is no argument on WP_Date_Query that accepts a strtotime()-compatible string for an exact date match. One workaround is to use a combination of before/after to get a simplified query.

Adding support for an exact match can be used when querying for posts from a specific date as well as including/excluding posts from a specific date for a complex query. Suggested syntax:

// Query for posts after January 1st, 2013 OR exactly on November 7th, 2010
[
  'date_query' => [
    'relation' => 'OR',
    [
      'after' => 'January 1st, 2013',
    ],
    [
      'exact' => 'November 7th, 2010',
    ],
  ],
]

Relates to #18694.

[Michi91]

From my perspective, the challenge will be to build the WHERE clause depending on the input.

To stay with your example of November 7th, 2010, it should include all posts on that day and not just November 7th, 2010 00:00:00 or November 7th, 2010 23:59:59? Another example: November 7th, 2010 18:00 as input should include all possible seconds?
Right?

This is different from the before and after behavior, where the statement is filled up to a minimum or maximum, depending on the inclusive parameter.

strtotime / date_create, will always add year, month, day, hour,minute, seconds if they are missing.
From my perspective it's hard to determine if the hours, minute and seconds have been submitted by the user or by strtotime/date_create when using a string as input.

date_create is always called after trying to parse some common date formats has failed.
.

Does anyone have a idea, how to solve this?

This is working btw:

// Query for posts after January 1st, 2013 OR exactly on November 7th, 2010
[
  'date_query' => [
    'relation' => 'OR',
    [
      'after' => 'January 1st, 2013',
    ],
    [
       'year' => '2010',
       'month' => '11', 
       'day' => '7',  
    ],
  ],
]

Maybe it would be nice to have exact but only with array as parameter? This would still require a lot validation.