WordPress / WordPress/WordPress-Coding-Standards

Using a transient should be considered a way of caching a direct database call

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Description

Bug Description

Using a transient for caching a direct database call is not deemed acceptable but I believe it should be:

When using an external object cache, get_transient() is short-circuited to use wp_cache_get().

When not using an external object cache, it falls back to use get_option() (after ensuring that all options were loaded). And then get_option() either uses a hash lookup in all options, or wp_cache_get().

Thanks @apermo for the pointer and encouragement to file this!

Minimal Code Snippet

The issue happens when running this command:

./vendor/bin/phpcs -s --standard=WordPress transient.php

... over a file containing this code:

if ( ! get_transient( 'time' ) ) {
	$wpdb->get_var( 'SELECT current_time()' );
}

Error Code

WordPress.DB.DirectDatabaseQuery.NoCaching

Environment

Question Answer
PHP version 7.4
PHP_CodeSniffer version 3.10.1
WordPressCS version 3.1.0 (also tested with dev-develop 29488fe)
WordPressCS install type https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress-Coding-Standards?#composer-project-based-installation

Tested Against develop Branch?

  • I have verified the issue still exists in the develop branch of WordPressCS.

Contributor guide

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Reproduce the report with ./vendor/bin/phpcs -s --standard=WordPress transient.php and inspect the implementation of WordPress.DB.DirectDatabaseQuery.NoCaching. Trace how the sniff recognizes caching before changing its behavior, then rerun the command with the provided get_transient() example and the relevant test suite to confirm the warning is no longer reported.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
php
Domain
tooling
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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