When registering a new taxonomy, the second argument of register_taxonomy($taxonomy, $object_type, $args) is the post type (or types) that this taxonomy is registered for.
However, when registering a custom post type, you can also pass taxonomy as one of the arguments:
taxonomies
(array) (optional) An array of registered taxonomies like category or post_tag that will be used with this post type. This can be use in lieu of calling register_taxonomy_for_object_type() directly. Custom taxonomies still need to be registered with register_taxonomy().
Default: None
This is redundant. Which should be used? Can you register a taxonomy without associating it with a specific post type, and then later, when registering the custom post type, associate it then?
As a little backgrounder to why I should care (other than that I don’t like inconsistencies and redundancy): I’m creating a fairly generic taxonomy that I can foresee using across a variety of implementations. I’d love to define this taxonomy once (in a separate file), without any foreknowledge of the custom post types that may want to take advantage of it in the future. Then, on a specific implementation, as I’m creating the custom post type, I know I have this taxonomy that I can associate with the post type. Hope this explains my reasons a bit.
So I dug into the source and discovered that even though the documentation STATES that
$object_typeis “required”, there’s nothing in the logic that makes this so.$object_typeis just added to the properties of the tax object, which presumably is also done when you register the tax while creating the custom post, and also when you useregister_taxonomy_for_object_type(). I tried creating a custom taxonomy with null for the$object_typeparameter, and then assigning the tax when creating the custom post type and it worked as hoped-for.Codex updated.