Title: Create a daily post programatically
Last modified: August 29, 2020

---

# Create a daily post programatically

 *  [alexgagi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/alexgagi/)
 * (@alexgagi)
 * [5 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/create-a-daily-post-programatically/)
 * Hi there, I can’t find any topic discussing my needs, so I create this topic.
   
   My needs: automatically create a daily post with the summary of all the posts
   published in the last 24 hours. What I can do so far:
    - I have created a shortcode that returns an unordered list with all the linked
      titles of the posts published in the last 24 hours. If I echo that shortcode
      on php I can see the list.
    - I can create a new post with the title desired (including the day-month-yar
      of creation) using wp_insert_post().
 * What I can not do (so in this I need help):
    1. To insert in the post_content attribute the shortcode (I include the code used
       for the wp_insert_post)
    2. That every day at 20:00 WP creates a new post using the wp_insert_post().
 * This is the code I use to create the new post:
 *     ```
       <?php 
       $content = do_shortcode( '[summary]' );
       $date = date("d/m/Y");
       $title_post = "Resumen diario - " .$date;
   
       $id = wp_insert_post(array(
         'post_title'=>$title_post, 
         'post_type'=>'resumen', 
         'post_status'=>'publish',
         'post_content'=> $content,
       ));
       ?>
       ```
   
 * Thanks a lot for your help.
    -  This topic was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by [alexgagi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/alexgagi/).

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  Moderator [bcworkz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bcworkz/)
 * (@bcworkz)
 * [5 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/create-a-daily-post-programatically/#post-13332827)
 * Use a [scheduled event](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/wp_schedule_event/)
   to run your post insertion code on a daily basis.
 * Include your shortcode as plain text as part of the desired post content. Something
   like:
    `$content = 'My diary for ' . date("d/m/Y") . '<br>[my-shortcode date="'.
   time() . '"]';`
 *  Thread Starter [alexgagi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/alexgagi/)
 * (@alexgagi)
 * [5 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/create-a-daily-post-programatically/#post-13332900)
 * Thanks a lot for your answer, [@bcworkz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bcworkz/).
   
   I have achieved to create a cron job that executes my function using the WP Crontrol
   plugin, so the part of creating new post every day is solved. This is the function
   triggered:
 *     ```
       add_action( 'esfera_custom_cron', 'esfera_daily_summary' );
   
       function esfera_daily_summary() {
       	$content = do_shortcode( '[summary]' );
       	$date = date("d/m/Y");
       	$title_post = "Resumen diario - " .$date;
   
       	$id = wp_insert_post(array(
       	  'post_title'=>$title_post, 
       	  'post_type'=>'resumen', 
       	  'post_status'=>'publish',
       	  'post_content'=> $content,
       	));
       }
       ```
   
 * The post is published and the title and post_type is ok, but post_content shows
   nothing, and I don’t know how to transform my shortcode into plain text as you
   suggest. This is my shortcode code:
 *     ```
       function daily_summary() {
         	$args = array(
       	    'date_query' => array(
       	        array(
       	            'column' => 'post_date_gmt',
       	            'after' => '60 hours ago',
       	        ),
       	    ),
       	    'posts_per_page' => -1,
       	);
       	$the_query = new WP_Query( $args );?>
       	<ul>
       	<?php
       	// Start our WP Query
       	while ($the_query -> have_posts()) : $the_query -> the_post(); 
       	// Display the Post Title with Hyperlink
       	?>
       		<li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>  
       	<?php 
       	// Repeat the process and reset once it hits the limit
       	endwhile;
       	wp_reset_postdata();
       	?>
       	</ul>
       <?php }
       add_shortcode('summary', 'daily_summary');
       ```
   
 * Thanks for your help.
 *  Moderator [bcworkz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bcworkz/)
 * (@bcworkz)
 * [5 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/create-a-daily-post-programatically/#post-13335196)
 * Adding content with a shortcode is as I described, but even simpler. I assumed
   it would pass a timestamp, but using date_query within the shortcode is even 
   better.
    `$content = '[summary]';`
 * I advise you to not `do_shortcode()` to create each post’s content. While it 
   will work, you end up duplicating content. It becomes difficult to keep data 
   in sync, plus it’s inefficient. Shortcodes are intended to be “done” when the
   post is output, not as it is saved.
 * The issue is your shortcode handler does not correctly manage output. It is directly
   generating output, which is incorrect. All output must be collected into a single
   variable which is returned from your handler function for WP to echo out. Because
   your handler has a lot of mixed HTML and PHP, it’s probably simplest to collect
   output by using [the PHP output buffer](https://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.outcontrol.php).
   Start the buffer before generating output. At the end, get/flush the buffer and
   return the buffer content.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

The topic ‘Create a daily post programatically’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [php](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/php/)
 * [wp_insert_post](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/wp_insert_post/)

 * In: [Developing with WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/wp-advanced/)
 * 3 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [bcworkz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bcworkz/)
 * Last activity: [5 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/create-a-daily-post-programatically/#post-13335196)
 * Status: not resolved

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