I’d really appreciate anyone’s help in this. Basically I want to make an array of lists made from other arrays in order to get round the limitations of wordpress’ do_shortcode function. I’m doing this using a number of functions.
LONG VERSION OF THE PROBLEM:
The code currently looks like this:
[php]
/* These are the functions contained in a functions file */
function output_entry_data() {
$postdate = get_the_date(‘j/n/y’);
$entrytitle = get_the_title();
return ('<li><p class="postmeta">'. $postdate. '</p><h3>'. $entrytitle. '</h3></li>');
}
function output_month_data($entrynomax = ‘’, $month = ‘’, $entrydata = ‘’) {
$entryno = 1;
while($entryno <= $entrynomax) {
echo $entrydata[$entryno];
$entryno++;
}
}
function output_year_data($monthlynomax = ‘’, $year = ‘’, $monthlydata = ‘’) {
$monthno = 1;
while($monthno <= $monthnomax) {
echo do_shortcode('<h4>[slider title="'. $month. '"]</h4><ul>'. $monthlydata[$monthno]. '</ul>[/slider]');
$monthno++;
}
}
/* This is from a loop that determines whether you have reached the end of a month or a year */
$entrydata[$entryno] = output_entry_data();
$entrynomax = $entryno;
$monthlydata = array($monthno => $monthno);
$monthlydata[$monthno] = return(output_month_data($entrynomax, $month, $entrydata));
$monthlynomax = $monthno;
$annualdata[$yearno] = array($yearno => $yearno);
$annualdata[$yearno] = return(output_year_data($monthlynomax, $year, $monthlydata));
$entryno = 1;
$monthno = 1;
$yearno++;
$yearo = get_the_date(‘Y’);
/* The idea is that all the data gets outputted at the end of the loop like this: */
$yearnomax = $yearno;
echo (’
- ’);
$yearno = 1;
if($yearno <= $yearnomax) {
echo do_shortcode('<h3>[expand title ="'. $year. '"]</h3><ul>'. $annualdata[$yearno]. '</ul>[/expand]');
$yearno++;
}
echo(’’);
[/php]
At the moment the code is successfully creating the $entrydata[$entryno] array because the function output_entry_data() simply returns a line of code each time.
However, when I try to create the array $monthlydata[$monthno] for each month, it simply runs the function output_month_data() and makes a big list of all the monthly entries, rather than passing the data to the array to be used by the other functions.
I can see that this is because I used ‘return’ in output_entry_data() and ‘echo’ in output_month_data()
SHORT VERSION OF THE PROBLEM
I want the function output_month_data() to generate the contents of an unordered list based on the array $entrydata[$entryno], but simply to return the contents for use by other functions rather than echo them. Can this be done when there’s a while loop involved?
Many thanks, I’d appreciate any input here.