Way to delete old core files after core update

[wojsmol]

Feature Request

• Yes, I reviewed the contribution guidelines.

Describe your use case and the problem you are facing
Currently there is no way to delete old core files if during the update checksums for target WP version and locale aren't available.
Describe the solution you'd like
Command or a flag to delete old core files.
A clear and concise description of what you want to happen.
A way to delete old core files after core update exists.

[schlessera]

WP-CLI currently diffs the old checksums against the new checksums to decide what left-overs to purge in

core-command/src/Core_Command.php

Lines 1350 to 1393 in 1fa06e0

	private function cleanup_extra_files( $version_from, $version_to, $locale ) {
	if ( ! $version_from || ! $version_to ) {
	WP_CLI::warning( 'Failed to find WordPress version. Please cleanup files manually.' );
	return;
	}
	$old_checksums = self::get_core_checksums( $version_from, $locale ?: 'en_US' );
	if ( ! is_array( $old_checksums ) ) {
	WP_CLI::warning( "{$old_checksums} Please cleanup files manually." );
	return;
	}
	$new_checksums = self::get_core_checksums( $version_to, $locale ?: 'en_US' );
	if ( ! is_array( $new_checksums ) ) {
	WP_CLI::warning( "{$new_checksums} Please cleanup files manually." );
	return;
	}
	$files_to_remove = array_diff( array_keys( $old_checksums ), array_keys( $new_checksums ) );
	if ( ! empty( $files_to_remove ) ) {
	WP_CLI::log( 'Cleaning up files...' );
	$count = 0;
	foreach ( $files_to_remove as $file ) {
	// wp-content should be considered user data
	if ( 0 === stripos( $file, 'wp-content' ) ) {
	continue;
	}
	if ( file_exists( ABSPATH . $file ) ) {
	unlink( ABSPATH . $file );
	WP_CLI::log( "File removed: {$file}" );
	$count++;
	}
	}
	if ( $count ) {
	WP_CLI::log( number_format( $count ) . ' files cleaned up.' );
	} else {
	WP_CLI::log( 'No files found that need cleaning up.' );
	}
	}
	}

However, for combinations of locales & versions that we don't have checksums available, this just fails with a message that cleaning up by hand is required.

However, WordPress provides a list of files that are supposed to be deleted and deletes them by default on update: https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/blob/a216b6d83845dc4cdd01ff517cdf36b72043b6b3/src/wp-admin/includes/update-core.php#L20-L791

We should combine this data with the checksums, to use the checksums to only delete old files when they have not been modified, and to unconditionally delete old files when we don't have checksums to verify for modifications.

[Aaron-Ritter]

I assume my problem goes in the same direction Warning: Checksums not available for WordPress 5.9/de_DE. Please cleanup files manually. Is this still something to be considered fixing as the issue is open since 2 years?

[wojsmol]

@Aaron-Ritter Message posted by you is caused by the same issue. AFAIK the issue is still considered to be fixed.

[Aaron-Ritter]

thanks @wojsmol at least that confirms my finding :) I was wondering if there is an alternative solutions, the Wordpress Updates are in the meantime often scheduled for fully automatic upgrades too, so maybe I could trigger that particular job through wp cli instead avoiding the wp core update all together.

[schlessera]

@Aaron-Ritter This is indeed still an issue. The latest update for this is that release 5.9 showed that the WordPress update process is broken as well and will be rethought for 6.0. Hopefully, that rethinking can also include WP-CLI-usable logic that just works.