Install-Helper - Old Code?

[hakre]

While beta-testing I run over the file install-helper.php. I wonder if that file (last change dec 2008) is still in use.

A quick search on the global variable $wp_only_load_config did reveal that it is not in use any longer.

I have absolutely no idea wether or not this still in use. At least the global variable can be removed.

If anybody else is more into this (three database related functions in there that might be considereable in wpdb class and can make her mind about it, would be great. My patch is only removing the global so far.

[hakre]

Related: #11882

[hakre]

I just had the idea to create a listing of all files sorted by date last changed. You find it attached, it's sorted, oldest files on top. Date information taken from current trunk SVN:

svn list -vR

[nacin]

Looks like it's a global that was added in #6933. If I had to guess, based on the restructuring that took place, that it was cruft, perhaps indicative of an earlier direction taken by the contributor, and ended up in core.

I doubt any plugin finds a use for it -- it being set versus not set doesn't indicate anything beyond that this file is loaded, and even then its name has no related meaning. The name is what made me realize it came out of when we created wp-load.

This looks fine to me. I'm going to move to 3.1, and we can take care of it early.

[hakre]

Do you have an idea for the whole file?

[nacin]

Replying to hakre:

Do you have an idea for the whole file?

Yes, the file itself can be loaded by plugins to perform specific but rare DB tasks, hence it is one of the few APIs in WordPress that need to be loaded manually.

I doubt there are more than a few plugins which actually use it. I've seen some use maybe_create_table() (though dbDelta handles that), etc.

[nacin]

(In [15299]) Remove unused global from install-helper. props hakre, fixes #13405.