When retrieving information from the WordPress database I prefer to avoid using direct database queries, but there are times in which they can be useful (and it’s important that it’s done right).
One use case in which it might be helpful is when you need to retrieve a set of data of a single type.
Working with dates in PHP is one of those things that you either have a good handle on, you’re working on understanding, or you’re stuck in the rabbit hole of the documentation that’s in the manual.
If you’re working with WordPress, though, the chance that you’re going to need to work with dates is quite high.
Sharing databases is something that’s convenient to do within your local development environment especially if you’re working with multiple machines.
If for whatever reason you’re looking to do this with a staging environment or production environment, then this is not the way to do it. There are strategies like database replication and the like that are meant for that,
This post is the second part in a series I’m working through that talks about WordPress Metadata Association, and the first part of this involves working through the process of programmatically creating WordPress users (but it’s been five years!).
I’ve talked about doing this before, but things change over time as we gain more experience,
When using the CMS, we’re used to relating data through WordPress metadata association. Sometimes it’s well-used; other times, it’s abused.
If you’ve worked with web development in any other application, there are probably strategies you’ve used to associate data with different types of entities. That is, you’ve likely created tables specifically for the two types of information and then related them in a variety of ways.
One of the ways that WordPress plugins come to be is that, at least in my case, they start off as a collection of functions used to help with a particular purpose for a given project. From there, you think “Hey, maybe someone else will find this useful.”
At least that’s been my experience more often than not.
