Attaching to Docs programmatically

Hello! The nature of WP’s attachment system makes it pretty tricky to do. Here’s a snippet from a migration project I recently did that should point you in the right direction. You can see near the top that you’ve got to pass the doc_id, file_path, file_name, and date_created to the method.

	protected function add_doc_attachment( $args ) {
		$doc_id = $args['doc_id'];
		$file_path = $args['file_path'];
		$file_name = $args['file_name'];
		$date_created = $args['date_created'];

		buddypress()->bp_docs->attachments->set_doc_id( $doc_id );

		$tmpfname = wp_tempnam( $file_name );
		copy( $file_path, $tmpfname );
		$file = array(
			'error' => null,
			'tmp_name' => $tmpfname,
			'size' => filesize( $file_path ),
			'name' => $file_name,
			'type' => pathinfo( $file_path, PATHINFO_EXTENSION ),
		);

		$overrides = array(
			'test_form' => false,
			'test_size' => false,
			'test_type' => false,
		);

		$sideloaded = wp_handle_sideload( $file, $overrides );

		if ( isset( $sideloaded['error'] ) ) {
			var_dump( $sideloaded ); die();
		}

		$attachment = array(
			'post_date' => $date_created,
			'post_mime_type' => $sideloaded['type'],
			'post_title' => basename( $tmpfname ),
			'post_content' => '',
			'post_status' => 'inherit',
			'post_parent' => $doc_id,
		);

		$attachment_id = wp_insert_attachment( $attachment, $sideloaded['file'] );
		$attach_data = wp_generate_attachment_metadata( $attachment_id, $sideloaded );
		wp_update_attachment_metadata( $attachment_id, $attach_data );

		buddypress()->bp_docs->attachments->set_doc_id( 0 );

		return $attachment_id;
	}

Check out how attachments are handled in the plugin for your answers:

create_htaccess() builds the htaccess:
https://github.com/boonebgorges/buddypress-docs/blob/master/includes/attachments.php#L228

mod_upload_dir() convinces WordPress to use the BP Docs uploads directory:
https://github.com/boonebgorges/buddypress-docs/blob/master/includes/attachments.php#L372

You can add some code to your import/create script (I put mine in a class), something like this

public function create_doc() {
	// In create function
	add_filter( 'upload_dir', array( $this, 'mod_upload_dir' ) );
	// Sideload logic
}

public function mod_upload_dir( $uploads ) {
	$subdir = '/bp-attachments/' . $this->new_doc_id;

	$uploads['subdir'] = $subdir;
	$uploads['path'] = $uploads['basedir'] . $subdir;
	$uploads['url'] = $uploads['baseurl'] . '/bp-attachments/' . $this->new_doc_id;

	return $uploads;
}