Upgrade/Install: Show and select translation updates on the Updates screen

[s-a-s-k-i-a]

Trac ticket: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/42281

Summary

list_translation_updates() currently renders only a generic translations notice and an Update Translations button. Unlike the WordPress core, plugin, and theme update sections, it does not resolve or display the specific translation updates that are pending, and it does not allow individual translation updates to be deferred for later installation.

This PR brings the translations section closer to the existing plugin and theme update UX by:

• listing the specific pending translation updates
• rendering them in a checkbox table that matches the existing updates UI
• allowing individual translation updates to be left unchecked and installed later
• persisting those unchecked translation updates as deferred so they remain available and are skipped by background translation updates until selected again

Changes

• add translation update display helpers in wp-admin/includes/update.php
• add translation update identifiers and deferred-state helpers in wp-includes/update.php
• resolve translation update names for core, themes, and plugins
• map plugin translation slugs back to installed plugin files so WordPress.org-style slugs still display the correct plugin name
• replace the plain translations list on update-core.php with a checkbox table styled like the existing plugin/theme update tables
• persist unchecked translation updates in a site option and keep them visible for later installation
• pass only selected translation updates to Language_Pack_Upgrader::bulk_upgrade()
• skip deferred translation updates in WP_Automatic_Updater::should_update() and Language_Pack_Upgrader::async_upgrade()
• add PHPUnit coverage for translation update display/deferred data, identifier handling, and deferred background/async update behavior

Test plan

• php -l src/wp-admin/includes/update.php
• php -l src/wp-admin/update-core.php
• php -l src/wp-includes/update.php
• php -l src/wp-admin/includes/class-language-pack-upgrader.php
• php -l src/wp-admin/includes/class-wp-automatic-updater.php
• php -l tests/phpunit/tests/admin/includesUpdate.php
• php -l tests/phpunit/tests/admin/languagePackUpgrader.php
• php -l tests/phpunit/tests/admin/wpAutomaticUpdater.php
• vendor/bin/phpcs --standard=phpcs.xml.dist src/wp-admin/includes/update.php src/wp-admin/update-core.php src/wp-includes/update.php src/wp-admin/includes/class-language-pack-upgrader.php src/wp-admin/includes/class-wp-automatic-updater.php tests/phpunit/tests/admin/includesUpdate.php tests/phpunit/tests/admin/languagePackUpgrader.php tests/phpunit/tests/admin/wpAutomaticUpdater.php
• git diff --check
• npm run build:dev
• Authenticated HTTP E2E validation against https://wpcore.wp-studio.dev/wp-admin/update-core.php using a temporary MU-plugin fixture and local language-pack ZIP fixtures:
• verified the translations table rendered with 3 rows for WordPress, Hello Dolly, and Twenty Twenty-Four
• verified all 3 translation rows were selected by default
• submitted the form with only the core and theme translation updates selected
• verified the upgrade screen completed with 2 successful translation updates
• verified the remaining plugin translation update stayed available on the Updates screen and rendered unchecked
• verified deferred_translation_updates persisted only the unchecked plugin translation update
• verified WP_Automatic_Updater::should_update( 'translation', ... ) returned false for the deferred plugin translation update and true for a non-deferred translation update
• verified Language_Pack_Upgrader::async_upgrade() left the deferred translation update pending
• Current-head WordPress Playground E2E verified all-select, clear-all, defer-all, persisted unchecked rows, and malformed query handling with controlled core/plugin/theme translation fixtures
• Official GitHub Actions: Coding Standards, PHP Compatibility, PHPStan, build, both E2E variants, performance, and upgrade tests passed
• Official PHPUnit matrix: 176 jobs passed and 3 were skipped by matrix conditions. One PHP 7.4/MySQL 8.0 multisite job reached the workflow's 20-minute limit after its PHPUnit, AJAX, ms-files, and Xdebug test commands had all passed.

Local PHPUnit execution was unavailable because this environment does not have the required WordPress test database/Docker runtime; the official GitHub Actions matrix provides the PHPUnit validation above.

Use of AI Tools

AI assistance: Yes
Tool(s): Codex
Model(s): GPT-5-based Codex
Used for: implementation, test scaffolding, server-side E2E validation orchestration, and PR drafting; outputs were reviewed and validated with syntax checks, PHPCS, git diff --check, and authenticated admin-page testing.

---

This Pull Request is for code review only. Please keep all other discussion in the Trac ticket. Do not merge this Pull Request. See GitHub Pull Requests for Code Review in the Core Handbook for more details.

[github-actions]

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[github-actions]

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Test this pull request with WordPress Playground.

[s-a-s-k-i-a]

Playground test passed. Manually tested and reviewed. Works.

Test this pull request with WordPress Playground.

[github-actions]

The following accounts have interacted with this PR and/or linked issues. I will continue to update these lists as activity occurs. You can also manually ask me to refresh this list by adding the props-bot label.

Core Committers: Use this line as a base for the props when committing in SVN:

Props jyria, tfrommen.

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[tfrommen]

👋 Hey there!

Since wp_is_translation_update_deferred is performing one or more DB queries under the hood, you might want to call it only if needed. If $update is already false, there's no point in possibly setting it to the same value again. 😉

[s-a-s-k-i-a]

Quick note on the remaining failing PHPUnit jobs in the current run:

• PHP 8.1 / MariaDB 11.4 fails during npm run env:install with Database connection error (2002) Connection refused.
• PHP 8.0 / MariaDB 11.8 fails during gutenberg:verify while downloading the Gutenberg artifact with Download/extraction failed: fetch failed.

These both appear to be CI/infrastructure issues rather than failures caused by the translation update changeset. The other workflows for the current head are passing, and the targeted syntax, PHPCS, smoke, and E2E validation for this patch remain green.

Happy to take another look if either failure reproduces consistently on a rerun.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR updates the WordPress Updates screen translation section to mirror the plugin/theme update UX: it lists individual pending translation updates in a checkbox table, allows deferring specific translation updates, and ensures deferred translation updates are skipped by background/async translation updates until re-selected.

Changes:

• Added stable identifiers and site-option persistence helpers to defer/restore translation updates across requests.
• Replaced the translations section on update-core.php with a checkbox table and updated the translation upgrade handler to install only selected translation updates while persisting unchecked ones as deferred.
• Updated background translation update logic to skip deferred translation updates, and added PHPUnit coverage for the new helpers and display data.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 6 out of 6 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
tests/phpunit/tests/admin/includesUpdate.php	Adds PHPUnit tests for translation update display data, stable IDs, and deferred-state behavior.
src/wp-includes/update.php	Introduces translation update stable IDs and deferred update get/set helpers stored in a site option.
src/wp-admin/update-core.php	Renders translation updates in a checkbox table and processes selected vs deferred updates during translation upgrades; adds an admin notice for deferred selections.
src/wp-admin/includes/update.php	Adds display helpers to resolve translation update names/languages and build display-ready translation update rows.
src/wp-admin/includes/class-wp-automatic-updater.php	Skips deferred translation updates when deciding whether to auto-update translations.
src/wp-admin/includes/class-language-pack-upgrader.php	Skips deferred translation updates during async translation upgrades.

---

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 6 out of 6 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

[s-a-s-k-i-a]

@tfrommen The branch is rebased to current trunk, and your previous feedback remains addressed. The final review follow-up in ac83634 removes the duplicate translation-update lookup and adds focused regression coverage for both WP_Automatic_Updater::should_update() and Language_Pack_Upgrader::async_upgrade(); all review threads are resolved.

Current-head validation is complete: Coding Standards, PHP Compatibility, PHPStan, build, both E2E variants, performance, and upgrade tests pass. In the PHPUnit matrix, 176 jobs pass and 3 are skipped by matrix conditions. One PHP 7.4/MySQL 8.0 multisite job reaches the workflow's 20-minute limit after PHPUnit, AJAX, ms-files, and Xdebug have all passed; rerunning upstream requires repository admin rights.

If you have bandwidth for another look, I would appreciate it. Thank you!

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 6 out of 6 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 8 out of 8 changed files in this pull request and generated no new comments.

[tfrommen]

As mentioned on Trac, I gave this another review and left some inline feedback. Overall, I still think this is good.

The @since annotations need a refresh.

Some code could do with (more) tests, which also requires some minor refactoring.

[tfrommen]

issue:

All new functionality is currently marked with 7.1.0. This needs to be refreshed.

[s-a-s-k-i-a]

Updated the new @since annotations to 7.2.0 in d9930c0. That's our target release, not a confirmed inclusion. The final version will need to match the release this lands in.

[tfrommen]

note:

There is a behavior change in handling requests. Previously, any POST request upgraded all translations. Now, plugins, scripts, or cached forms that post without translations[] do nothing, with no notice. I believe this is the intended behavior, but I wanted to point out the change nevertheless.

[s-a-s-k-i-a]

Yes, this is intentional: a request without the form's update IDs installs nothing and leaves saved preferences unchanged. Unchecking everything in the current form is different: those updates are saved for later, and a confirmation is shown. Tests cover both cases and outdated forms.

[tfrommen]

suggestion:

Since this core logic lives directly in the file scope, it cannot be (and thus is not) unit-tested. I'd recommend extracting it into a function (e.g., in wp-admin/includes/update.php) and add unit tests for stale entries, items that are not in the form, and all-unchecked.

[s-a-s-k-i-a]

Moved the selection logic into wp_process_translation_update_selection() in d9930c0. Permission and nonce checks stay in the controller. Tests cover outdated entries, updates outside the form and unchecking everything, and verify which updates are selected or saved for later.

[tfrommen]

suggestion:

This test is brittle. It checks hard-coded 2 transient reads. That number breaks when any code adds a read. The property that matters is that reads do not grow with the number of plugin rows.

A better test could look like this (I did not actually run this):

public function test_wp_get_translation_update_data_reads_plugin_updates_independent_of_row_count() {
	$count_reads = function ( $row_count ) {
		$translations = array();
		for ( $i = 1; $i <= $row_count; $i++ ) {
			$translations[] = array(
				'type'     => 'plugin',
				'slug'     => "plugin-$i",
				'language' => 'de_DE',
				'version'  => '1.0.0',
			);
		}

		set_site_transient( 'update_plugins', (object) array( 'translations' => $translations ) );

		$reads  = 0;
		$filter = static function ( $value ) use ( &$reads ) {
			++$reads;
			return $value;
		};

		add_filter( 'pre_site_transient_update_plugins', $filter );
		wp_get_translation_update_data();
		remove_filter( 'pre_site_transient_update_plugins', $filter );

		return $reads;
	};

	$this->assertSame(
		$count_reads( 1 ),
		$count_reads( 10 ),
		'Plugin update reads must not grow with the number of translation rows.'
	);
}

You may also want to add a test with zero plugin updates to confirm that the plugin-name lookup does not run at all.

[s-a-s-k-i-a]

The test now compares one plugin translation row with ten instead of requiring exactly two reads. Separate tests check that no plugin-name lookup is added when there are no updates or only Core/theme updates. All these tests pass in d9930c0.

[s-a-s-k-i-a]

I've pushed d9930c0 and replied to each of your comments in its own thread.

Explicit updates, including WP-CLI, can still install translations saved for later. The shared upgrader now clears the saved deferral only after a successful installation; failed updates remain deferred.

The tests passed for manual selection, background updates and WP-CLI, including real WordPress.org downloads. All 10 GitHub workflows completed successfully: 121 checks passed and 20 skipped.