How can I set a role to the user programmatically?

User roles and capabilities API is available from wp-includes/capabilities.php
This function could be useful also:
https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Function_Reference/get_editable_roles

Ok, I got it. There is the “role” argument in the wp_update_user function. We can use it to set a role programmatically:

wp_update_user(array(
    'ID' => $user_id,
    'role' => 'my-custom-role'
));

https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Function_Reference/wp_update_user

Any word on what this would look like?

I created a custom role with User Role Editor (called volunteer_user)

And my code looks like this:

add_action( 'edit_user_profile_update', 'my_save_extra_profile_fields' );

function my_save_extra_profile_fields( $user_id ) {

	if ( !current_user_can( 'edit_user', $user_id ) )
		return false;
	$user_id = wp_update_user(array('ID' => $user_id,'role' => 'volunteer_user'));
}

And when I click the button “Update User” on the user-edit.php page I don’t see that Role added to the usermeta in the capabilities.

Am I doing something wrong?

Any help would be appreciated!

Look at wp-includes/capabilities.php
‘wp_update_user’ function is too overloaded by other user attributes validation/update stuff. I did not test myself, so I’m not sure it it works just for these 2, user ID and role attributes.
I think that solution below is more effective in this case:

$user = new WP_User( $user_id );
$user->set_role('volunteer_user');

Thank you so much Vladimir, I think this is very close to what I need but I think I am having trouble with the terminology of “roles” vs. capabilities and how (URE) “User Role Editor” names things.

I created a “Role” through URE and assigned it several capabilities
Image1

Using the this code

add_action( 'edit_user_profile_update', 'my_save_extra_profile_fields' );

function my_save_extra_profile_fields( $user_id ) {

	if ( !current_user_can( 'edit_user', $user_id ) )
		return false;
	$user = new WP_User( $user_id );
	$user->add_role('Volunteer User');

}

The user is not “added” to the “existing” role created by URE, instead a new Capability is listed in the custom capabilities.
Image2

So what I am trying to do is add the user to a Role (with capabilities).
Image3

Thank you again for any insight.

Joe Dostie
C2CND

Do not use role name, but use role ID

$user->set_role('volunteer_user');

change it if you used something else when added a custom role.
WordPress shows role assigned to the user as a custom capability if it can not find such role.

Thank you Vladimir,

Sorry, I actually did use set_role I also tried a few other things and that was my last code I pasted.

But I still seem to be having an issue and its really eluding me…

First, I have checked URE and the roles I added. The name is Volunteer User and the ID is volunteer_user
URE

I also checked the database in the options table and usermeta table and the Role is s:14:”volunteer_user“;b:1;

When I use this code:

add_action( 'edit_user_profile_update', 'my_save_extra_profile_fields' );

function my_save_extra_profile_fields( $user_id ) {
	//if ( current_user_can( 'edit_user', $user_id ) )
			$user = new WP_User( $user_id );
			$user->set_role('volunteer_user');
}

When I click the “Update User” button on the user-edit.php page it basically looks like nothing happens, the user is never added to the “Volunteer User” role as I expect it to.

So just out of curiosity I tried ‘contributor’ and still, nothing happened. At this point I thought the code was not working.

But the weird part is the if I replace the role ID with something that does NOT exist, for example this code:

add_action( 'edit_user_profile_update', 'my_save_extra_profile_fields' );

function my_save_extra_profile_fields( $user_id ) {
	//if ( current_user_can( 'edit_user', $user_id ) )
			$user = new WP_User( $user_id );
			$user->set_role('FAKE ROLE');
}

and then I click the “Update User” button, it creates the new capability and assigns the user that capability
URE2
So I know the function is firing.

I have triple checked the spelling (all lower case)
I disabled ALL plugins

Everything I am reading says this is being done correctly.

I’m sitting here scratching my head at this point.

Kindest Regards

PS.. that //if statement is NOT commented out (that was just another test)

Phew…I got this working thanks to Chad Butler of WP-Members.

What I ended up doing was a combination of his code and the WP_User.

A leraning curve for me was that I thought everything on the user-edit.php could be controlled by the “edit_user_profile_update” hook but after Chad showed me that I needed a hook from his plugin, everything started working fine.

Thanks for the help Vladimir!

Thanks for the information. You are welcome!