Uploading Images to Media Library via wp_handle_sideload() fails

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My basic scenario is the following:

I have a directory on my server that gets filled with images via ftp every once in a while. I would want to move these images to the wp upload directory and then add them to the media library with wp_insert_attachment(). I thought wp_handle_sideload() to be the correct function for this but if fed with an absolute path to one of the images it returns an error.

Heres my code so far:

function oo_attach_images($images, $id){   

 //$images is an array of anbsolute image paths, $id is the id of a post I want the images to be attached to.

    require_once(ABSPATH . '/wp-admin/includes/file.php');
    require_once(ABSPATH . '/wp-admin/includes/image.php');

    foreach($images as $image){

        $override = array('test_form' => FALSE);

        $file = wp_handle_sideload($image, $override);

        print_r($file); //returns: Array ( [error] => )

        $attachment = array(
            'post_mime_type' => $file['type'],
            'post_title' => basename($image),
            'post_content' => ' ',
            'post_status' => 'inherit'
        );

        $attach_id = wp_insert_attachment( $attachment, $file['file'], $id );

        $attach_data = wp_generate_attachment_metadata( $attach_id, $file['file'] );
        wp_update_attachment_metadata( $attach_id,  $attach_data );


    }
}

I looked into similar questions, but none of the solutions outlined there seemed to have anything to do with the sideload itself failing.
Frankly, I believe that I do not pass the right kind of file path to wp_handle_sideload(), but since its undocumented in codex I have no idea what kind of input it might expect. Does anyone know what I need to change to make this work?

4 s
4

Your files array needs to mimic the $_FILES global so you need to make a dummy page with some file inputs that prints or dumps the contents of $_FILES to see how it is structured. Make a variable that looks like that with your data and pass that wp_handle_sideload().

EDIT:

This answer was correct at the time of writing and is if you wish to use wp_handle_sideload(). media_handle_sideload() allow you to attach the media to a post at the same time.

See @anatol’s own answer for a full solution.

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