Creating a shortcode from the results of an array_rand function

Question

The functions.php file of my WordPress site currently has in place blocks of code like this:

function examplecode01() { 
$i = '<a href="/path/" class="exampleclass" id="example-code-01"><img class="example01imgclass" src="path/example01.jpg" alt="Example 01"/></a>';
return $i;
} 
add_shortcode('example-code-01', 'examplecode01');

There are 5 or more of these, each with their respective variations of "example code ##" and such as described above. The shortcode line allows for an editor to specify a shortcode and pull in a specific banner image into a Blog post (using the first parameter of the add_shortcode), as follow:

[example-code-01]

What I wanted to do instead was to randomize it, in such a way that an editor can use the same shortcode anywhere and it will be a random banner image from those available.

In working toward this, I slightly modified the above code block as follows:

function examplecode01() { 
echo '<a href="/path/" class="exampleclass" id="example-code-01"><img class="example01imgclass" src="path/example01.jpg" alt="Example 01"/></a>;
}

(I removed the shortcode line because it would cause problems in the output of the next section -- bear with me).

Okay, so there's several of the modified code blocks, each with their own image. At the end of them, I then have a function, as follows:

$functions = array('examplecode01', 'examplecode02', 'examplecode03', 'examplecode04', 'examplecode05'); 
$functions[array_rand($functions)]();

When I throw this into an otherwise-blank PHP file (for testing) and run it online, it outputs a random banner image from the ones I've listed. Hooray! Success... sort of.

See, what I need now is a way for the editors to call up that random result by way of a shortcode. I'm not 100% sure on how to make this happen, though. The original shortcode basically was ["id used in the code block", "function name"]

I thought about setting the result to a variable and then calling that variable, but I'm still not sure how it would "convert" (so to speak) to a shortcode...

Can anyone help me with this final part of the puzzle? Thank you in advance!

Ben Harold · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-18 16:46:52Z

1

Creating a shortcode from the results of an array_rand function

I suggest you look at the problem from a different angle. Rather than creating a short code from the results of an array_rand call, it seems to me that you want to define a single short code which will display a random banner.

If you want a short code that returns a random banner, something like this might work:

function random_banner() {
    $banner_indexes = ['01', '02', '03', '04', '05'];
    $index = $banner_indexes[array_rand($banner_indexes)];

    return sprintf('<a href="/path/" class="exampleclass" id="example-code-%s"><img class="example%simgclass" src="path/example%s.jpg" alt="Example %s"/></a>', $index, $index, $index, $index);
}

add_shortcode('random-banner', 'random_banner');

answered Oct 18, 2018 at 16:46

Ben Harold

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2 Comments

AnghellicKarma Over a year ago

Thanks for the suggestion! Is there a way that I can test it, in its own PHP file outside of WordPress' functions.php file? The add_shortcode line is causing an error when I throw the whole code block in a PHP file, so I commented it out but then nothing actually renders. In my original code above, I could at least test it by refreshing a PHP file with the code block in it, because each refresh would generate a banner from among the ones available in the array. Just want to verify its functionality before throwing it in my functions.php file - thanks again!

Ben Harold Over a year ago

You can just comment out the add_shortcode call and echo random_banner() instead.

ArtisticPhoenix · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-18 19:34:32Z

0

This is how I would do it

function examplecode01(){
    return __FUNCTION__;
}

function examplecode02(){
    return __FUNCTION__;
}

function examplecode03(){
    return __FUNCTION__;
}

function examplecode04(){
    return __FUNCTION__;
}

function examplecode05(){
    return __FUNCTION__;
}

function examplecode() { 
    $functions = array('examplecode01', 'examplecode02', 'examplecode03', 'examplecode04', 'examplecode05'); 
    shuffle($functions); //randomize array
    $function = array_shift($functions); //get first array element

    return function_exists($function) ? $function() : '';
} 
//add_shortcode('example-code-random', 'examplecode');

echo examplecode();

Sandbox

The __FUNCTION__ "magic" constant is the name of the current function, you can replace this with your actual code, it just makes seeing what function was called a bit easier.

To be honest instead of doing this examplecode01 and examplecode02 (iterative functions) I would just make one short code (to rule them all) like:

[examplecode]  //random
[examplecode banner="1"] //examplecode01

And so on, it will be easy to expand on later. Something like this:

function examplecode($attr) { 
    $banners = array('example01.jpg', 'example02.jpg', 'example03.jpg', 'example04.jpg', 'example05.jpg'); 
    $atts = shortcode_atts(array(
        'banner' => false
    ), $atts );

    if($atts['banner'] && isset($banners[$atts['banner']-1])){
        //make sure to check if the index exists
        //you could handle this differently, such as not show a banner, show an error message etc...
        $index =  $atts['banner']-1;  //0 based vs 1 based
    }else{
        $index = rand(0, (count($banners)-1));
    }

    //pad with a leading 0 if less then 2
    $i = str_pad($index+1, 2, '0', STR_PAD_LEFT);       

    return '<a href="/path/" class="exampleclass" id="example-code-'.$i.'"><img class="example'.$i.'imgclass" src="path/'.$banners[$index].'" alt="Example '.$i.'"/></a>';
} 
add_shortcode('examplecode', 'examplecode');

See if you do function{n} and you want to add a banner, you have to make a whole new function and shortcode. However, if you use the shortcode attributes then you only need to add the image to the array. No "banner" attribute it's random, otherwise it's the banner image number from the array. There is a bit of jiggling to keep your banners 1 based because arrays are 0 based. You can simplify it a lot by starting at 0 instead. But whatever...

The last thing is whenever I write shortcodes I wrap them in a function exists, you don't have to do that. It's just something I like to do, just to be safe.

if(!function_exists('examplecode')){
    function examplecode($attr) { ... }
}

Basically it prevents it from defining the function if it's already been defined.

edited Oct 18, 2018 at 19:34

answered Oct 18, 2018 at 16:42

ArtisticPhoenix

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5 Comments

AnghellicKarma Over a year ago

Thanks so much for this! That first block of code does exactly what I'm looking for! That said, I am very interested in that second block of code for the sake of future-proofing. I created a php file to test it out and it's not rendering anything (view source is even blank). I obviously changed out the image names, and the php file is in the same folder as the images, too... do they still need to have an absolute path? Guess I'm just wondering why nothing is rendering out and how to resolve it before using that method instead of the first one. Thanks again!

ArtisticPhoenix Over a year ago

Oh, I didn't change the name of the shortcode. example-code-random should be examplecode

ArtisticPhoenix Over a year ago

It's really hard to test shortcodes outside of wordpress, but the rest looks fine. So if you had examplecode for the shortcode in a post (for example) that would explain it. This is basically DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) principle, instead of repeating the code we can normalize the function for reuse, by taking advantage of the attributes.

AnghellicKarma Over a year ago

Thank you so much for your very thorough answer, @ArtisticPhoenix! I've marked this as Answered now, as I've got it working on my install. Cheers!

ArtisticPhoenix Over a year ago

Sure, glad I could help.

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