Using Shortcodes within functions on Wordpress [duplicate] - php

Question

This question already has answers here:
How can I call a WordPress shortcode within a template?
(3 answers)
Closed 4 years ago.
I have a functions file within a wordpress site that contains various functions that are called up by their relevant hook when a page on the website is rendered.
A particular function is working fine but I have now added a shortcode relating to the Wordpress Plugin "Collapse-O-Matic" with in the function's code. When the page is rendered the shortcode shows up as the shortcode itself in Square brackets! I presume there is something I'm not understanding about how to render the result of a shortcode and wondered if someone was able to explain to me how to do this correctly.
The shortcode is [expand title="Open" swaptitle="Close"]Target Content[/expand] and I have placed it in this function as follows (please note this is not all the code inside the function):
<ul class="admin">
<?php
// loop through rows (sub repeater)
while( have_rows('item_list_details') ): the_row()
// display each item as a list
?>
<?php
$date = new DateTime(get_sub_field('date'));
$now = new DateTime(Date('Y-m-d'));
$diff = $now->diff($date);
if ($diff->days > $latest): //Use $diff->days and not $diff->d
?>
<li class='research'>
<?php else: ?>
<li class='researchLatest'>
<?php endif;?>
<div class='itemTitle'>
<?php $link = get_sub_field('link_url'); if( $link ): ?>
<a href="<?php echo $link['url']; ?>" target="<?php echo $link['target']; ?>" title="<?php echo $link['title']; ?>">
<?php endif; ?>
<?php the_sub_field('link_name'); ?>
<?php $link = get_sub_field('link_url'); if( $link ): ?>
</a>
<?php endif; ?><p class='alert'> - <strong>NEW</strong></p>
</div>
<br/>
<div class="itemDescription">
[expand title="Open" swaptitle="Close"]<?php the_sub_field('link_description'); ?>[/expand]
</div>
</li>
<?php endwhile; ?>
</ul>`
As you can see there is a php expression inside the shortcode (<?php the_sub_field('link_description'); ?>) but hope it is still possible to make this render correctly.

Answer 1

The function you are looking for is do_shortcode().
Generally, it's simply a matter of doing:
echo do_shortcode('[shortcode]whatever[/shortcode]');
Additionally, you are using the_sub_field() from ACF, which output directly and doesn't return anything, so you can’t pass its result to do_shortcode().
You could use get_sub_field() instead, and capture the output, and then pass everything to do_shortcode().
E.g.:
$linkDescription = get_sub_field('link_description');
$renderedShortcode = do_shortcode("[expand title="Open" swaptitle="Close"]$linkDescription[/expand]");
echo $renderedShortcode;
If you need to check if the shortcode exists before using, you have shortcode_exists() available.
E.g.
if (shortcode_exists('expand')) {
echo do_shortcode("[expand title="Open" swaptitle="Close"]$linkDescription[/expand]");
}
else {
echo $linkDescription;
}
Documentation:
get_sub_field()
do_shortcode()
shortcode_exists()

Answer 2

inside your code you have to use the wordpress function do_shortcode( $string )
<?php echo do_shortcode("[expand title=\"Open\" swaptitle=\"Close\"]".get_sub_field('link_description')."[/expand]") ?>
you can actually pass whole blocks mixed with html and shortcodes into this function, it will return a string with everything rendered out.
this works also obviously
$output=do_shortcode("[expand title=\"Open\" swaptitle=\"Close\"]".get_sub_field('link_description')."[/expand]");
edit: fixed get_sub_field according yivi's input