Save an Excerpt Automatically When One Is Missing
Fills in the excerpt field from the first sentences of the post when it is saved without one, so feeds, plugins and APIs that read the stored excerpt always get a summary.
Opens WPIDE on
Code
// Length of the generated excerpt.
$wpide_auto_excerpt_words = 35;
// Post types to fill.
$wpide_auto_excerpt_types = array( 'post' );
add_filter( 'wp_insert_post_data', function ( $data ) use ( $wpide_auto_excerpt_words, $wpide_auto_excerpt_types ) {
if ( '' !== trim( $data['post_excerpt'] ) || ! in_array( $data['post_type'], $wpide_auto_excerpt_types, true ) || ! in_array( $data['post_status'], array( 'publish', 'future', 'pending' ), true ) ) {
return $data;
}
$content = wp_unslash( $data['post_content'] );
$content = excerpt_remove_blocks( strip_shortcodes( $content ) );
// Skip headings so the summary starts with real text.
$content = preg_replace( '#<h[1-6][^>]*>.*?</h[1-6]>#is', '', $content );
$text = trim( preg_replace( '/\s+/', ' ', wp_strip_all_tags( $content ) ) );
if ( '' !== $text ) {
$data['post_excerpt'] = wp_slash( wp_trim_words( $text, $wpide_auto_excerpt_words, '...' ) );
}
return $data;
} );Notes
Writers can still type their own excerpt, which is never overwritten; change $wpide_auto_excerpt_words for a longer summary.
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