Creating a slug in the URL when using PHP String to pull data

Question

This may be something simple for most PHP coders, however, I have never had to do this before. I am using Wordpress website with a Page Template. On this page is a page I created to Query results by User_id, then displaying the users profile information. What I am trying to achieve is the following:

Page #1 Lawyers Directory > Has Multiple Lawyers being pulled from Database

Action: Click Link (Example Link: http://example.com/lawyer-profile?user_id=9) *the number 9 is the dynamic number

Page #2 Lawyer Profile > Has Profile Info of Lawyer

PROBLEM How do I change this URL http://example.com/lawyer-profile?user_id=9

TO

http://example.com/lawyer-profile/john-doe/

But still pull the data by using the User_id?

Any help would be appreciated!

UPDATE: I found this on wordpress's website and I modified it to reflect what I would need it to do but it doesn't work. It redirects to the lawyer-directory page which is page_id 189 but still shows the query strings in the URL.

Here is the url i am using: http://example.com/index.php?page_id=189&userid=195&fullname=jack-bowers

and it should look like this: http://example.com/lawyer-directory/jack-bowers/

any suggestions?

 function custom_rewrite_tag() {
   add_rewrite_tag('%userid%', '([^&]+)');
   add_rewrite_tag('%fullname%', '([^&]+)');
 }
 add_action('init', 'custom_rewrite_tag', 10, 0);

 function custom_rewrite_rule() {
     add_rewrite_rule('^lawyer-directory/([^/]*)/([^/]*)/?','index.php?page_id=189&userid=$matches[1]&fullname=$matches[2]','top');
 }
 add_action('init', 'custom_rewrite_rule', 10, 0);

“But still pull the data by using the User_id?” – if you are not passing the id as a parameter in your URL, then you can not “pull the data” by that id, because you do not have the id in your script … that should be pretty obvious. Either pass the id as well (many systems use something like /lawyer-profile/9/john-doe/, where only the 9 has actual meaning and the rest doesn’t matter) – or rewrite your script to select the data by the value that does get passed instead, john-doe. For that to properly work, the value should be unique within your data set of course. — C3roe
– C3roe, Commented Jan 27, 2015 at 12:27

James Waddington · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-27 12:12:54Z

1

If you're using Wordpress, take a look at add_rewrite_rule(). Along with add_rewrite_tag, this will allow you to handle that.

What you can do is define a rewrite tag for user_id, and a rewrite rule to map your pattern to the single page that handles it. You can then get the value using query_vars eg.

$wp_query->query_vars['user_id']

So this would return eg. john-doe. On your database you would have an index for the lawyer's permalink which you can then look up to find their id/record.

It's a bit confusing at first, but there is a decent example in the doc linked above.

answered Jan 27, 2015 at 12:12

James Waddington

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1 Comment

user2593040 Over a year ago

I posted an update with a code snippet. Can you take a look at it for me and tell me why it isn't working? It will go to the correct page, but doesn't show the url like it's suppose to.

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