[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #34544: Attaching metadata to shared terms can result in data corruption

[WordPress Trac]

#34544: Attaching metadata to shared terms can result in data corruption
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 Reporter:  boonebgorges           |       Owner:
     Type:  defect (bug)           |      Status:  new
 Priority:  high                   |   Milestone:  4.4
Component:  Taxonomy               |     Version:
 Severity:  normal                 |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  has-patch 2nd-opinion  |     Focuses:
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Changes (by johnjamesjacoby):

 * keywords:  has-patch => has-patch 2nd-opinion


Comment:

 34544.diff gets the job done, but seems backwards to me. It's also
 possible I don't fully understand the harm that adding metadata to a
 shared term might cause.

 Most of the time terms are not shared across taxonomies, so potentially
 hitting the database on each metadata add/update is kinda sucky, though
 there's not really any better way to know for sure.

 If the problem is that splitting terms causes metadata to be orphaned, I
 expect the newly split term to have the same metadata as it's origin. Less
 of a split; more of a clone? The term splitting code could check for
 metadata at the origin and copy it to the new term. This approach would
 allow us to leave the metadata functions unmodified, and guarantee
 metadata exists as it's intended to after terms are split.

 Other, more silly thoughts. How about the edge-case where installations
 are choosing not to run the term-splitting code, but do want term
 metadata. Regarding the newly proposed `finished_splitting_shared_terms`
 option, would it make more sense to compare to the `db_version` instead,
 or to separately version each database table and come up with a naming
 convention for doing that to other tables in the future?

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/34544#comment:5>
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