WordPress Conditional Post Creation - wordpress

Question

I want this plugin to only create the post with title "Test Post" if it doesn't already exist. For some reason it always creates the post when I activate the plugin. Seems get_page_by_title('Test Post') is always false even after the post has been created. Can someone please explain why?
<?php
/* Plugin Name: Create Test Post */
function create_post(){
if(get_page_by_title('Test Post')){
return;
}
$my_post = array(
'post_title' => 'Test Post',
'post_content' => 'This is a test post',
'post_status' => 'publish'
);
wp_insert_post($my_post);
} // end create_post
register_activation_hook(__FILE__, create_post);

Answer 1

The function get_page_by_title() can only be used on pages, not posts without setting the post type argument.
This will set the appropriate argument for that function. If 'post' is not working try using 'posts'.
The full documentation for this function is found here.
https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/get_page_by_title/
function create_post(){
$prev_post = get_page_by_title('Test Post', 'OBJECT', 'post');
if ($prev_post != NULL) {
$prev_post_status = get_post_status( $prev_post->ID );
}
if (!isset($prev_post_status) || !in_array($prev_post_status, array('trash', 'published')) ) {
$my_post = array(
'post_title' => 'Test Post',
'post_content' => 'This is a test post',
'post_status' => 'publish'
);
wp_insert_post($my_post);
}
} // end create_post
register_activation_hook(__FILE__, create_post);