How to programatically set the category for a new Woocommerce Product Creation?

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The solution presented here allows me to easily create “Categories” for a wordpress post: 

//Check if category already exists
$cat_ID = get_cat_ID( $category );

//If it doesn't exist create new category
if($cat_ID == 0) {
        $cat_name = array('cat_name' => $category);
    wp_insert_category($cat_name);
}

//Get ID of category again incase a new one has been created
$new_cat_ID = get_cat_ID($category);

// Create post object
$new_post = array(
    'post_title' => $headline,
    'post_content' => $body,
    'post_excerpt' => $excerpt,
    'post_date' => $date,
    'post_date_gmt' => $date,
    'post_status' => 'publish',
    'post_author' => 1,
    'post_category' => array($new_cat_ID)
);

// Insert the post into the database
wp_insert_post( $new_post );

However, Woocommerce doesn’t recognise these categories. Woocommerce categories are stored somewhere else. How can I programmatically create the categories for woocommerce and what is the correct way to assign it to a new post?

Post Views: 4

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2 comments

  1. Woocommerce categories are terms in the product_cat taxonomy. So, to create a category, you can use wp_insert_term:

    wp_insert_term(
  'New Category', // the term 
  'product_cat', // the taxonomy
  array(
    'description'=> 'Category description',
    'slug' => 'new-category'
  )
);

    This returns the term_id and term_taxonomy_id, like this: array('term_id'=>12,'term_taxonomy_id'=>34))

    Then, associating a new product with the category is simply associating the category term_id with the product post (products are posts in Woocommerce). First, create the product/post and then use wp_set_object_terms:

    wp_set_object_terms( $post_id, $term_id, 'product_cat' );

    Btw, woocommerce offers functions for these too which might be easier to use but I have experienced issues with woocommerce functions available in wp cron jobs, so these should be enough to get you going.

  2. You can load a product:

    $product = wc_get_product($id);

    Then set categories:

    $product->set_category_ids([ 300, 400 ] );

    Finally you’re supposed to save, because operations dealing with properties use prop setter methods, which store changes in an array for saving to the DB later:

    $product->save();

    See the API Documentation for more information: https://docs.woocommerce.com/wc-apidocs/class-WC_Product.html

    It is better to use WC-provided functions for backwards and forwards compatibility.