Shortcodes breaking Wordpress Site - php

Question

I am creating new shortcodes for Wordpress on my local version of a Wordpress website.
In functions.php, I am adding for example:
function shortTest() {
return 'Test for shortcodes ';
}
add_shortcode('shortTestHTML', 'shortTest');
Adding the function only is OK, but when I add the add_shortcode() portion, I get a major issue.
It breaks something somehow and I get 500 errors, meaning I can't even load my website locally anymore.
Any thoughts???
Thanks so much!
EDIT:
From PHP Error Log:
[21-Jun-2011 19:02:37] PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined function add_shortcode() in /Users/jonas/Sites/jll/wp-includes/functions.php on line 4505

Answer 1

1) Make sure that you have included shortcodes.php file somewhere (for example, in wp-load.php or whatever other more appropriate place may be).
require_once( ABSPATH . '/wp-includes/shortcodes.php' );
2) Make sure that this file does exist on your installation (which I think you have otherwise we would see a different error).
3) Where do you call this function from (I see it is called from functions.php, but which place)? Possible problem here -- functions.php is loaded prior to shortcodes.php, and if you do use that add_shortcode function before shortcodes.php is loaded you most likely will see this error. Double check your code in that place -- maybe move the call to add_shortcode to another place.

Answer 2

mentioned functions.php is not in wp-include/ directory.
it is in: wp-content/themes/<your-theme-name>/functions.php

Answer 3

adding this in functions.php you say? Well I don't know about that, the way I did it was create a folder inside the wp-content/plugins folder, e.g. shortcodetest.
Inside this folder create a shortcodetest.php file.
in that file you basically write your code:
<?php
/*
Plugin Name: ShortCodeTest
Plugin URI: http://www.example.net
Description: Print a test message
Version: 0.1
Author: anonymous
Author URI: http://www.example.net
*/
add_shortcode('shortcodetest', 'shortcodetest_function');
function shortcodetest_function() {
return "test of shortcode";
}
?>
Then you login as admin, you will see a plugin ShortCodeTest, activate it. Then you can use the shortcode in your posts.
Note that the comments are important... they show up in the plugin description.

Answer 4

I got a way to execute them but it's a little triky :)
You need to change a little bit your template by putting your shortcode (for example: [inline ....]) between <shortcode></shortcode> then
Here is the function to place at the end of your function.php.
function parse_execute_and_echo_shortcode($_path) {
$str = file_get_contents($_path);
while (strrpos($str, "<shortcode>")) {
$beginShortcode = strrpos($str, "<shortcode>");
$endShortcode = strrpos($str, "</shortcode>");
$shortcode = substr($str, $beginShortcode + 11, $endShortcode - ($beginShortcode+11));
$shortcode = do_shortcode($shortcode);
$str = substr_replace($str, $shortcode, $beginShortcode, $endShortcode + 12);
}
echo $str;
}
Then you can call function parse_execute_and_echo_shortcode and giving it the path to your file containing the shortcodes.
Hope that can help someone

Answer 5

Check your error.log file (it should be in your apache log folder).
It probably has to do with add_shortcode not existing as a function.

Answer 6

Put your shortcode in the file /wp-includes/shortcodes.php this way you make sure it will be loaded when all the blows and whistles are up and running.