Been struggling over the last day or so to stop WordPress wrapping p tags around a shortcode. I’m using Arnan de Gans Events plugin on a WordPress site for a client. One of the pages just includes this shortcode:
[events_show]
This shows a list of events. I’ve configured the plugin so each event is in its own div. And it all works fine, except WordPress insists on wrapping the whole thing in a couple of p tags, making the code invalid, producing this:
<p><div class="event>.........</div></p>
Irritating. The WP shortcode API site says “wpautop recognizes shortcode syntax and will attempt not to wrap p or br tags around shortcodes that stand alone on a line by themselves”. Nooooo.
I finally solved this by adding the following to my functions.php file:
function simonbattersby_shortcode_format($content){
$content = preg_replace('/(<p>)\s*(<div)/','<div',$content);
$content = preg_replace('/(<\/div>)\s*(<\/p>)/', '</div>', $content);
return $content;
}
add_filter('the_content','simonbattersby_shortcode_format',11);
Points to note – the filter needs to be set with priority 11 (or higher) because otherwise the shortcode won’t have produced its output, and it’ll have no effect. All the preg_replace lines are doing is looking for a <p> tag followed by <div>, with any number of whitespaces between them, and replacing with just a <div> tag. Brute force, inelegant, but it works, and I couldn’t find any other way….
Tags: wordpress
To be a better solution I suggest to use this preg match:
$content = preg_replace(‘/(]*>)\s*(<div)/','<div',$content);
so you will match also p tag with eventually attribute (ex. ) that the editor could add.
AWSM.
Not clear at all what the problem is. You’ll have to post your rendered code.
I would post a link, but it is a non-public development version on my local machine. I am using a child theme of the oxygen theme with custom css in the child theme’s CSS file.
Per my note above, the problem is that the php is resisting being styled. When I wrap the above-mentioned php script with span tags, and add some borders, then what happens is I’ll get one line with a blank space in a border box, then a line with the php excerpt output (but with no styling applied) and then another line with another blank space inside the CSS border box.
wow MAN! this is awsome!
This is an amazing solution, thanks for sharing.
This worked for me as well. On Julie’s point, because I have lots of shortcodes that generate various tags, instead of replacing the div parameters, I replicated the two preg_replace lines and modified them for and . Plus, if I am using a shortcode that includes other html or php code from an external file, which I do a lot, now I simply wrap that code with div tags when I create the file so this code can do its thing.
YAY!
THis worked!
(Not right away.)
The shortcode I was using generated an unordered list instead of a div, so I just replaced div with ul and your code and it totally worked!
Thanks for explaining what this code was doing otherwise I would have never known why it didn’t work immediately!