Wordpress update dates for all posts

I have a site I started but never officially launched. It has many posts and as time passes by they are getting old. Every once in a while I update with a new post and think of a recent launch, but I can’t with some posts dating back as far as 2 years..

Searched for plugins that might do this but none suited me. Finally I added a short code to my “functions.php” that runs only if a special parameter is passed in the URL and updates all the post dates to recent dates with intervals of 1 to 4 days between each.

Here is the first draft of the code just to give you a starting point:

function dates_update() {
   $my_posts = get_posts( array('post_type' => 'post', 'numberposts' => 100 ) );
   $i=0;
   foreach ($my_posts as $posts) {
        // random hour and time. You can also manually set these.
          //$h = rand(1, 23);
          //$i = rand(0, 59); 
        //calculate dates backwards
        $timestamp = time();
        $tm = 86400 * $i; // 60 * 60 * 24 = 86400 = 1 day in seconds
        $tm = $timestamp - $tm;
        $postdate = date("Y-m-d", $tm); // [ Y-m-d H:i:s ]
        $newDate = array(
            'ID' => $posts->ID,
            'post_date' => $postdate
        );
        wp_update_post($newDate);
        $i++;
    }    
    echo('updated');
    die;
}

function dates_update() {

$my_posts = get_posts( array('post_type' => 'post', 'numberposts' => 100 ) );

$i=0;

foreach ($my_posts as $posts) {

// random hour and time. You can also manually set these.

//$h = rand(1, 23);

//$i = rand(0, 59);

//calculate dates backwards

$timestamp = time();

$tm = 86400 * $i; // 60 * 60 * 24 = 86400 = 1 day in seconds

$tm = $timestamp - $tm;

$postdate = date("Y-m-d", $tm); // [ Y-m-d H:i:s ]

$newDate = array(

'ID' => $posts->ID,

'post_date' => $postdate

);

wp_update_post($newDate);

$i++;

}

echo('updated');

die;

}

Interested in my help with integration? Need additional customization?
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WordPress update dates for all posts

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