WP_User_Query to exclude users with no posts

3 comments

1. Well I have come up with 2 solutions.

   Solution 1 – foreach loop and verify each user

   This one is based off of @GhostToast’s solution, but with updated WordPress functions

   //new query with default args
   $author_query = new WP_User_Query();
   
   // Get the results
   $authors = $author_query->get_results();
   
   if( $authors ) {
   
       foreach( $authors as $author ) {
   
        if ( count_user_posts( $author->id ) >= 1 ) {
   
           echo $author->display_name . '</br>';
       }
   }
   } else { 
       echo "no users found"; 
   }
   

   Solution 2 – fancy pants pre_user_query action

   This is what I was thinking of when I posted my question once I found the pre_user_query action in the WP_User_Query class. If you pass in post_count as your orderby parameter then some fancy SQL querying that I never would’ve figured out on my own happens to join the proper tables together. So what I did was copy that join statement and add it on to my own. This would be better if I could check for its presence first before adding it… perhaps I will use a string match in the future. But for now since I am the one setting up the query I know it isn’t there and I just won’t worry about it yet. So the code turned out like so:

   function authors_with_posts( $query ) {
   
       if ( isset( $query->query_vars['query_id'] ) && 'authors_with_posts' == $query->query_vars['query_id'] ) {  
           $query->query_from = $query->query_from . ' LEFT OUTER JOIN (
                   SELECT post_author, COUNT(*) as post_count
                   FROM wp_posts
                   WHERE post_type = "post" AND (post_status = "publish" OR post_status = "private")
                   GROUP BY post_author
               ) p ON (wp_users.ID = p.post_author)';
           $query->query_where = $query->query_where . ' AND post_count  > 0 ';  
       } 
   }
   add_action('pre_user_query','authors_with_posts');
   

   and then to use it

   $args = ( array( 'query_id' => 'authors_with_posts' ) );  
   $author_query = new WP_User_Query( $args );
   

   The idea for a query_id parameter is from An Introduction to WP_User_Class

   Which is also just a very good reference on WP_User_Query

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2. Since 4.4, you can simply use the `has_published_posts’ parameter.

   Example:

   $authors = get_transient('mytheme_all_authors');
   if (empty($authors)){
   
       $user_args = array(
       'role__in'    => array('Author', 'Administrator', 'Contributor'),
       'orderby' => 'post_count',
       'order'   => 'DESC',
       'count_total'  => true,
       'has_published_posts' => array('post'),
       );
   
       $authors = new WP_User_Query( $user_args );
       set_transient('mytheme_all_authors', $authors, 1 * HOUR_IN_SECONDS );
   }
   
   $total= $authors->get_total();
   $authors = $authors->results;
   foreach ( $authors as $user) {
       // loop through your users....
   

   has_published_postscan be either true/false (or null), or an array of post types (like in this example).

   Note: I’m using transients here because this specific query can get pretty heavy depending on the system so it makes sense to store it for future uses.

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3. Submitting as answer for closure:

      $all_members = get_users();
         foreach($all_members as $member){
           $post_count = count_user_posts($member->ID);
           if(empty($post_count)) {
               $bad_writers[] = $member->ID;
               continue;
           } else {
               // do something;
           }
       }
   

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