[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #24299: 'save_post' action is a common bottleneck

[WordPress Trac]

#24299: 'save_post' action is a common bottleneck
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 Reporter:  johnjamesjacoby  |      Owner:
     Type:  enhancement      |     Status:  new
 Priority:  low              |  Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  Post Types       |    Version:
 Severity:  normal           |   Keywords:  has-patch dev-feedback
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 When reviewing code, I see almost daily that the 'save_post' action is
 used as a catch-all for saving post-meta from inside custom metaboxes. The
 problem with this approach is that 'save_post' runs even on internal post-
 types, like revisions, nav-menu items, auto-saves, etc...)

 It's my experience that most developers have no idea that their code runs
 in these circumstances, and they often don't check the post_type of the
 post being saved, resulting in unnecessary calls to update_post_meta() and
 sometimes storing useless information in the database.

 This issue becomes especially prevalent on sites with complex navigation
 menus, where sometimes hundreds of calls to 'save_post' can occur. The
 added overhead of bbPress and a few other CPT based plugins installed can
 ramp these wasted comparisons up into the thousands very quickly.

 Yes... this can largely be considered an education issue. And $post is
 passed into 'save_post' so it's a simple comparison check to make sure the
 post_type matches your intentions. There's also transition_post_status
 that allows even more control.

 Knowing this, I think there's still value in addressing this in core, by
 having a dedicated "save_post_$post_type" action directly after
 'save_post'. It's straight-forward, easy to tweak existing code, and
 provides a simple way to avoid repeated loops through 'save_post' just to
 compare a post_type and bail a bunch of times.

 Patch attached for proof of concept

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Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/24299>
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