Changing menu <li> to <dd> with wp_nav_menu - php

Question

I created a theme in HTML using Zurb Foundation and then integrated it into a WordPress theme.
The primary nav section in my theme, in its most basic form is:
<dl>
<dd></dd>
<dd></dd>
<dd></dd>
</dl>
I configured wordpress's menu call as such:
wp_nav_menu( array(
'theme_location' => 'primary',
'menu' => '',
'container' => '',
'container_class' => '',
'container_id' => '',
'menu_class' => 'menu',
'menu_id' => '',
'echo' => true,
'fallback_cb' => 'wp_page_menu',
'before' => '',
'after' => '',
'link_before' => '',
'link_after' => '',
'items_wrap' => '<dl id="tabnav" class="sub-nav">%3$s</dl>',
'depth' => 0,
'walker' => '') );
But in order to change the wrapping <li> that wordpress puts out to a <dd> I would need to write a custom walker.
I looked through some custom walkers and can see parts of the logic, but is creating a class every time I want to use custom html for a menu the only/most efficient way to go about it?

Answer 1

digwp provides an easier approach than the walker
create a function that builds the menu from scratch.
in your functions.php
// custom menu example # http://digwp.com/2011/11/html-formatting-custom-menus/
function clean_custom_menus() {
$menu_name = 'nav-primary'; // specify custom menu slug
if (($locations = get_nav_menu_locations()) && isset($locations[$menu_name])) {
$menu = wp_get_nav_menu_object($locations[$menu_name]);
$menu_items = wp_get_nav_menu_items($menu->term_id);
$menu_list = '<dl>' ."\n";
foreach ((array) $menu_items as $key => $menu_item) {
$title = $menu_item->title;
$url = $menu_item->url;
$menu_list .= "\t\t\t\t\t". '<dd>'. $title .'</dd>' ."\n";
}
$menu_list .= "\t\t\t". '</dl>' ."\n";
} else {
// $menu_list = '<!-- no list defined -->';
}
echo $menu_list;
}
and to call it in your theme:
<?php if (function_exists(clean_custom_menus())) clean_custom_menus(); ?>
so you would have to edit the $menu_name to your menu slug.
here's the source