How can I programmatically delete a user without deleting their content?

esod

1/29/23, 7:22 PM

I want to delete a user with this code:

$account = User::load(19920);
$account->delete();

How can I do that without also deleting the user's content?

I've been reviewing _user_cancel() hooks, but they all seem to be about doing things in the admin UI.

This hook works the way I expect it to and removes the user_cancel_delete radio button option from the admin UI.

/**
 * Implements hook_user_cancel_methods_alter().
 */
function my_user_module_user_cancel_methods_alter(&$methods) {
  // Remove Delete the account and its content method.
  unset($methods['user_cancel_delete']);
}

but I want to not delete content when $account->delete() is called in my update hook.

576

0 + 0

users

Score:4

Drupal

4uk4

1/29/23, 8:48 PM

Yes, you can use the user_cancel process to prevent content being deleted. As you found out it doesn't help to remove the options from UI. Programmatically you need to call the function directly, specifying the method user_cancel_reassign to replace the author with anonymous before deleting the user:

user_cancel([], $uid, 'user_cancel_reassign');
$account = User::load($uid);
$account->delete();

Caveat: This doesn't work for more than 10 pieces of content. Then you need to run this as a batch, which also would delete the user as final step of the batch process. See user deletion : user_cancel_reassign not working when user has more than 10 associated contents

0 + 0

esod

1/29/23, 9:38 PM

Thanks @4k4. `user_cancel([], $uid, 'user_cancel_reassign');` was the thing I was missing. I'm sure it's been around forever in Drupal. lol. I'll also have a look at when working with more than 10 pieces of content, which I'm sure will come up.

4uk4

1/30/23, 8:02 AM

Yes, this looks like ancient Drupal code. It might be more future-proof to query the nodes and change the author to anonymous yourself.

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: How can I programmatically delete a user without deleting their content?

TH: ฉันจะลบผู้ใช้โดยทางโปรแกรมโดยไม่ลบเนื้อหาได้อย่างไร

RO: Cum pot șterge programatic un utilizator fără a-i șterge conținutul?

RU: Как я могу программно удалить пользователя, не удаляя его содержимое?

VI: Làm cách nào tôi có thể xóa người dùng theo chương trình mà không xóa nội dung của họ?

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