How to use publish to delete items in Sitecore

Stelio made a post on how to handle the deletion of items across Sitecore databases. And I remembered that I wrote code for this situation in another way.

The way that I’ve approached this is to extend the Item Delete event so I can publish deleted item by publishing the parent item.

Basically, I detect the parent of the item that is currently deleted by an editor, and I publish that parent item on each target database that we have on our Sitecore installation.

The code, with comments for this here:

	using System;
	using System.Collections;
	using System.Collections.Generic;
	using Sitecore;
	using Sitecore.Configuration;
	using Sitecore.Data;
	using Sitecore.Data.Items;
	using Sitecore.Diagnostics;
	using Sitecore.Events;
	using Sitecore.Publishing;
	using Sitecore.SecurityModel;

	namespace Sitecore.Sandbox.Handlers
	{
	public class AutoPublisherHandler
	{
	/// <summary>
	/// OnItemDeleted handler.
	/// </summary>
	/// <param name="sender"></param>
	/// <param name="args"></param>
	public void OnItemDeleted(object sender, EventArgs args)
	{
	//This handler publishes the parent of the deleted item with his descendants of a deleted item.
	if (Context.IsBackgroundThread) return;
	try
	{
	//extract the deleted item, and then extract his parent
	var idParent = Event.ExtractParameter(args, 1) as ID;
	var parent = Database.GetDatabase("master").GetItem(idParent);
	var dataItem = parent;
	//fetch the target databases
	foreach (Database database in GetTargets(dataItem))
	{
	//publish the parrent for each database
	var options = new PublishOptions(dataItem.Database, database, PublishMode.SingleItem, dataItem.Language, DateTime.Now)
	{RootItem = dataItem, Deep = true};
	new Publisher(options).PublishAsync();
	}
	}
	catch (Exception ex)
	{
	Log.Error(ex.Message, this);
	}
	}


	/// <summary>
	/// Gets the targets.
	/// </summary>
	/// <param name="item">The item.</param>
	/// <returns>The targets.</returns>
	private IEnumerable<Database> GetTargets(Item item)
	{
	using (new SecurityDisabler())
	{
	Item targets = item.Database.Items["/sitecore/system/publishing targets"];
	if (targets != null)
	{
	var list = new ArrayList();
	foreach (Item target in targets.Children)
	{
	string name = target["Target database"];
	if (name.Length > 0)
	{
	Database database = Factory.GetDatabase(name, false);
	if (database != null)
	{
	list.Add(database);
	}
	else
	{
	Log.Warn("Unknown database in AutoPublisherHandler: " + name, this);
	}
	}
	}
	return (list.ToArray(typeof (Database)) as Database[]);
	}
	}
	return new Database[0];
	}
	}
	}

view raw

AutoPublisherHandler.cs

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And the config changes needed:

	<?xml version="1.0"?>
	<configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/">
	<sitecore>
	<events>
	<event name="item:deleted">
	<handler type="Sitecore.Sandbox.Handlers.AutoPublisherHandler, Sitecore.Sandbox" method="OnItemDeleted" />
	</event>
	</events>
	</sitecore>
	</configuration>