It’s been a pretty crazy week so far, and it’s only Wednesday.

As many of you are aware of, I launched a Kickstarter campaign Monday night: A more RESTful WP-CLI. Incredibly, it was 100% funded in just under 12 hours. Check out the link for more details on what I’ll be working on in early 2016.

But, I have an even more important note about supported WordPress versions:

  • WP-CLI v0.22.0 (the next release) will bump the minimum supported WordPress version from 3.5 to 3.7 (background).
  • WP-CLI versions prior to 0.20.3 will be incompatible with WordPress 4.4 (background).

This important note may apply to you in some way – please take action accordingly.

WP-CLI v0.21.0 represents 109 resolved issues and pull requests. Here’s what’s new.

Load WordPress with WP_CLI::get_runner()->load_wordpress();

For a while now, you’ve been able to run a WP-CLI command before WordPress loads by adding @when before_wp_load to your command docs. Now, you can load WordPress that same command.

See how wp eval makes use of WP_CLI::get_runner()->load_wordpress():

class Eval_Command extends WP_CLI_Command {

    /**
     * Execute arbitrary PHP code.
     *
     * <php-code>
     * : The code to execute, as a string.
     *
     * [--skip-wordpress]
     * : Execute code without loading WordPress.
     *
     * @when before_wp_load
     *
     * ## EXAMPLES
     *
     *     wp eval 'echo WP_CONTENT_DIR;'
     */
    public function __invoke( $args, $assoc_args ) {
        if ( null === Utils\get_flag_value( $assoc_args, 'skip-wordpress' ) ) {
            WP_CLI::get_runner()->load_wordpress();
        }
        eval( $args[0] );
    }
}

Use wp eval --skip-wordpress <code> to execute PHP without loading WordPress. Or, use wp eval-file --skip-wordpress <file> to, say, execute a quick and dirty script leveraging WP-CLI utilities without needing a WordPress install present.

Similarly, when you specify a --version=<version> with wp core verify-checksums, WP-CLI will check to ensure core files haven’t been modified – without loading WordPress.

Creating this new feature was almost like replacing the engine on a moving car.

More verbosity with --debug

When you supply the --debug flag, you’ll get more context into how WP-CLI is executing your command.

Before:

$ wp option get home --debug
http://wordpress-test.dev

After:

$ wp option get home --debug
Debug: Using default global config: /home/vagrant/.wp-cli/config.yml (0.026s)
Debug: No project config found (0.027s)
Debug: Required file from config: /srv/www/wp-rest-cli/wp-rest-cli.php (0.059s)
Debug: ABSPATH defined: /srv/www/wordpress-test.dev/ (0.06s)
Debug: Begin WordPress load (0.063s)
Debug: wp-config.php path: /srv/www/wordpress-test.dev/wp-config.php (0.065s)
Debug: Set URL: wordpress-test.dev/ (0.066s)
Debug: Loaded WordPress (0.515s)
Debug: Running command: option get (0.516s)
http://wordpress-test.dev

Make your own commands more helpful by including WP_CLI::debug( $debug_message ); at key checkpoints.

Other changes in v0.21.0

Enhancements:

  • Use wp core update-db --network to upgrade databases across an entire network; also improves verbosity for this command by providing the from and to database versions.
  • Adds a wp comment recount command for recalculating a post’s comment count.
  • Includes wp taxonomy list, wp taxonomy get, wp post-type list and wp post-type get for getting details about registered taxonomies and post types.
  • Use --defer-term-counting with wp post update or wp post delete to recalculate term count at the end of the operation for increased performance.
  • Returns a more useful error message when running wp scaffold plugin-tests with an invalid plugin slug.
  • In wp theme list, indicates a parent theme by setting the status=parent. This more clearly distinguishes between a genuinely inactive theme vs. an “inactive” theme being used as a parent theme.
  • Displays error message when trying to use wp rewrite flush --hard on a multisite install, because WordPress doesn’t generate a .htaccess file for multisite installs.
  • Permits --path for wp core download, even when WP is detected. This lets a custom WP-CLI command download WP to a subdirectory, when loaded from the scope of an existing WP install.
  • Adds --post_type__not_in argument to wp export, which can now produce an export without, say, feedbacks.
  • Permits space-delimited IDs for wp export --post__in. This makes it easier to pass IDs returned by wp post list --format=ids.
  • Includes an .editorconfig when using wp scaffold plugin.
  • Newly-generated install-wp-tests.sh files support $WP_VERSION=trunk or $WP_VERSION=nightly for running your plugin tests against WordPress trunk.
  • Warns user when wp-config.php isn’t writable for wp core multisite-convert.
  • Provides a more helpful error message when an invalid subcommand has a valid parent command.
  • Supports using WP-CLI on a WordPress instance backed by APC cache, but only after warning and requiring confirmation.
  • Sniffs out the custom vendor path if WP-CLI is a part of a larger Composer project.
  • Deprecates wp post url in favor of wp post list --field=url, but includes a backwards compatability shim for wp post url.
  • Supports --autoload=(yes|no) when using wp option update (requires WordPress 4.2).
  • Supports multiple comment ids for wp comment (spam|trash|approve).
  • Paginates help output on Windows using more.
  • Provides human-friendly output when rewrite rules successfully flush.

Bug fixes:

  • Generic arguments are no longer required for wp post create and wp comment create, allowing use of those commands without supplying, say, a title.
  • Accepts associative args with no right-side data.
  • Exhausts all possible options when looking for PHP binary with wp cli update. Previously, WP-CLI would try to call php directly, which would fail on systems where PHP wasn’t exposed as such.
  • Accommodates wp_new_user_notification()’s deprecated second argument, depending on WordPress version.

You can browse the full list of resolved issues on Github.

Contributors to this release: aaemnnosttv, borekb, danielbachhuber, gmcinnes, JRGould, johnbillion, kraftbj, miya0001, ntwb, rodrigoprimo, rmccue szepeviktor, torounit, voldemortensen, ypid