WordPress delete_option(); Wildcard capability? - php

Question

How would one go about deleting all option names in a WordPress database beginning with a specific prefix?
I would assume we need to specify a prefix, get all options that begin with that prefix, and then delete each option found.
Here is a sample of the prefix and WP functions for getting and deleting options in the database.
<?php
$prefix = 'cpt_';
$getOpt = get_option($prefix);
foreach($getOpt as $toDelete){
$deleteOpt = delete_option($prefix);
if(!$deleteOpt){
echo 'Failure.';
}
if($deleteOpt){
echo 'Success.';
}
}
?>
Resources:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/delete_option
http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/get_option

Answer 1

You could run this query:
global $wpdb;
$wpdb->query( "DELETE FROM {$wpdb->options} WHERE option_name LIKE 'cpt_%'" );
or put it in a function like so:
function delete_options_prefixed( $prefix ) {
global $wpdb;
$wpdb->query( "DELETE FROM {$wpdb->options} WHERE option_name LIKE '{$prefix}%'" );
}
delete_options_prefixed( 'cpt_' );

Answer 2

You need to make a "whitelist" of all the variables your plugin sets (I assume you are looking at a plugin uninstall script), then just loop through it at the other end so you can delete them all.
Something as simple as:
// Somewhere in your plugin, maybe as a class property
$pluginDefinedOptions = array('my_name', 'my_created', 'my_modified'); // etc
// Clear up our settings
foreach($pluginDefinedOptions as $optionName) {
delete_option($optionName);
}
This is the only way to keep your plugin code tidy.