Select Woocommerce payment method conditionally in PHP - php

Question

I want to programmatically set a default payment method (radio is checked) in woocommerce checkout page based on a condition using php (not jquery).
Lets say I have two payment methods:
'pay_method1' and 'pay_method2'
Most solutions suggest removing a method in order to select the other:
unset($gateways['pay_method1']) //auto selects pay_method2 naturally
But I don't want to remove the method. I only want to set a default when the checkout page loads / reloads, so the the user can still switch methods if needed.
I plan on having the following action in functions.php:
add_action("woocommerce_before_checkout_form", "custom_before_checkout_action");
function custom_before_checkout_action() {
if ($my_condition) {
//default to pay_method1 - how??
}
else {
//default to pay_method2 - how??
}
}
Is this possible to tell woocommerce which payment method should be checked this way?

Answer 1

You can see woocommerce template structure checkout folder have file payment-method.php. There are payment method $gateway object
have property $gateway->chosen to access true default checked payment gateway.
add_filter('woocommerce_available_payment_gateways', 'show_custom_payment_gateways');
function show_custom_payment_gateways( $available_gateways){
global $woocommerce;
$available_gateways = $woocommerce->payment_gateways->get_available_payment_gateways();
if( $myconditon ){
$available_gateways['pay_method2']->chosen = true;
$available_gateways['pay_method1']->chosen = false // default to false unchecked.
}
}