Custom field not populating on new post

• allisonmaccormick

• August 18, 2016 at 6:06 am

I have a custom post that contains a field named ‘user_id’ of type User and a repeater field named details.

I want to create a new post with the user that is currently logged in.

The problem is that I can create the new post with no errors but the user_id field is not populated.

Here is the code:
$current_user = wp_get_current_user();
$new_post = array(
‘post_title’ => ‘Planner for ‘.$current_user->display_name,
‘post_type’ => ‘planner’,
‘user_id’ => wp_get_current_user(),
‘post_author’ => $_SESSION[‘USER_ID’],
‘post_status’ => ‘publish’
);
$post_id = wp_insert_post( $new_post, $wp_error );

if (is_wp_error($post_id)) {
$errors = $post_id->get_error_messages();
foreach ($errors as $error) {
echo $error;
}

Anyone have any ideas why the user_id field is not filled in. I have it set as required on the custom post type but the post is created even when it is not filled in.

Thank you!

• ractoon

• August 18, 2016 at 8:21 am

wp_current_user() returns a User object. To get the ID you would need to access it like:

$current_user->ID

So your code would be updated to:

$current_user = wp_get_current_user();

$new_post = array(
  'post_title' => 'Planner for '.$current_user->display_name,
  'post_type' => 'planner',
  'user_id' => $current_user->ID,
  'post_author' => $_SESSION['USER_ID'],
  'post_status' => 'publish'
);

$post_id = wp_insert_post( $new_post, $wp_error );

if (is_wp_error($post_id)) {
  $errors = $post_id->get_error_messages();
  foreach ($errors as $error) {
    echo $error;
  }
}

• allisonmaccormick

• August 24, 2016 at 2:26 am

I know the name is misleading but the field is of type User so I don’t understand why wp_current_user() doesn’t work.

I attached a picture of what my custom fields look like.

Thanks

custom-field....png

• John Huebner

• August 24, 2016 at 12:03 pm

You can’t insert or update meta values when inserting or updating a post, which I assume you are trying to do. You need to use update_field() to update the custom field after you have inserted the post. https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/resources/update_field/. And you will need to use the field key when updating the field in this case. See the documentation for more information.

• allisonmaccormick

• August 25, 2016 at 11:40 pm

Ok. Thanks. I thought I tried that but I will try again and see what happens.
Thanks again