[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #28468: wp_capabalities (wp_usermeta table) actually serialized array of user_role

[WordPress Trac]

#28468: wp_capabalities (wp_usermeta table) actually serialized array of user_role
--------------------------+-----------------------------
 Reporter:  Nukeface      |      Owner:
     Type:  defect (bug)  |     Status:  new
 Priority:  normal        |  Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  Users         |    Version:  3.9.1
 Severity:  normal        |   Keywords:
  Focuses:                |
--------------------------+-----------------------------
 Setup: WP3.9.1 Dutch Multi-site
 Plugin (activated but un-used): Advanced Custom Fields - Problem persists
 without plugin.

 The user_role assigned to users of a blog gets stored in a weird format
 with an incorrectly named meta_key.

 When searching for users from a certain user_role a little trickery has to
 be used to be able to find the correct users.

     table wp_usermeta
     [meta_key] => [wp_capabilities]
     [meta_value] => [a:1:{s:13:"administrator";b:1;}]

 Not only is this a weird way to store this value, with an incorrect
 meta_key assigned, in this case it's also an incorrect value.

 This is the value assigned to a super-admin. So why is it labelled
 "administrator" instead of "super-admin"? And why is it stored with
 "wp_capabilities" and not something along the lines of "wp_user_role"?

 Also, why is the value stored like this?

     serialize(
     array(
     [administrator]=>true
     )
     )

 Why not plain-text, like pretty much any value in the wp_usermeta table?

 To get the correct users to be returned a query now has to be submitted
 with a meta_query like so:

     $roles[ 'relation' ] = 'OR' ;
     foreach( $user_roles as $role ){
     $roles[] = array(
     'key'       => 'wp_capabilities',
     'value'     => serialize(array($role=>true)), /* This value gets
 stored as: serialize(array(1){[$key]=>bool(true)) when it's created */
     'compare'   => '='
     );
     }

 Also, the record underneath (with every user apart from 'super-admin'
 roles) shows [meta_key]=>0, with super-admins: [meta_key]=>10. The usage
 of wp_user_level has been deprecated since WP3.0, so why is that still
 being used? (source: http://codex.wordpress.org/User_Levels).

 When using custom user_roles with custom capabilities this is very much so
 annoying to work through. Especially since there appears to be no reliable
 way to get the users of a specific user_role.

 Paired with the WP_User_Query class to get the data in mixed formats (of
 Object, StdClass and Array) and which doesn't properly get the meta-data
 promised in the codex when using 'all_with_meta' in the 'fields' key for
 the query, this gets really frustrating (source:
 http://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_User_Query - Return Fields
 Parameter).

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/28468>
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