How to include a custom (query) string in a permalink? WordPress

Darrin Boutote answers:

<?php
$newlink = get_permalink( $post->ID );
$newlink = remove_query_arg('action', $newlink);
$newlink = add_query_arg ('action', 'XX-or-YY', $newlink) ;
?>

<a href="<?php echo $newlink; ?>">TEXT</a>

Monster Coder comments:

Your structure seems working fine with default permalink structure
i am getting action=xx appended but my permalink structure is this:
/%post_id%-%postname%.html
so I am getting:
50-spring2.html?action=play
i want to get it like:
50-spring2-play.html
or,
play-50-spring2.html

and I want to get the 'play' in action variable!

is that possible without changing anything at backend? i wish :
1. not to change permalink stucture to anything than current one:
/%post_id%-%postname%.html
2. to get pretty link for my custom strings too

possible?

thanks

Darrin Boutote comments:

If you want the page to behave differently based on the "action" variable, (i.e. 'action=xx' or 'action=yy') then I don't know any other way to append it to the url and still have the page template "get" the action.

For my own personal enlightenment, I'd love to see how to extract a query arg from a url without the use of '?action=xx'.

Monster Coder comments:

well,
when URL is
50-spring2.html
wordpress identifies 50 (post_id) and spring2 (postname) as per permalink_structure! this is equivalent to:
/?p=50&title=spring2
I am not sure about the second portion (&title=spring2). but for an example, it is ok.

but what about .html? it is simply ignored by wordpress as it is in our permalink structure as static content. so isn't it possible that we put this static content dynamically? lolz, sounds funny :P. i mean we force wordpress to get ID and postname from the following url:
50-spring2-play.html and ignore the 'play'. this play will be available in $_GET['action'] much like wordpress gets ID in $_GET['p'];

I don't want to alter contents based on action. I will simply add some extra contents based on action!

wjm answers:

Hi,
What you need is create some new Rewrite Rules
I have done it.

This code considers that your permalink structure is /%post_id%-%postname%/
and your new parameter is called "mystring"
you can replace mystring everywhere in the code, for whatever you need.

Add this to your functions.php file

require_once( TEMPLATEPATH . '/rewrite_rules.php');
function prefix_permalink( $permalink, $post, $leavename ) {
global $permalink_prefix;
$url = get_bloginfo( 'wpurl' );
return str_replace( $url.'/', $url.'/'.$permalink_prefix.'-', $permalink);
}


Add this at the end of your single.php template.
or wherever you want to display the link and use the mystring value.

<?php
// PERMALINK PREFIX
/*
* working with the following permalinnk structure: /%post_id%-%postname%/
* the new url parameter has the name "mystring"
*/

//set the prefix
global $permalink_prefix;
$permalink_prefix = 'foofoo';

//retrieve "mystring" value
$mystring = get_query_var( 'mystring' );
echo '<p>Mystring: <strong>'.$mystring.'</strong></p>';

//add filter
add_filter( 'post_link', 'prefix_permalink', 10, 3);

//print link (this post)
echo '<p><a href="'.get_permalink( ). '">This Post</a></p>';

//print link (another post)

echo '<p><a href="'.get_permalink( 35 ). '">Other Post</a></p>';

//remove filter to avoid rewritting further links
remove_filter( 'post_link', 'prefix_permalink', 10, 3);
?>


and download this file. and save it as rewrite_rules.php in your theme's folder (same as where functions.php is)
http://wordpress.pastebin.com/mzKbZeuf

that rewrite rules works for paged posts, comment pages, feeds. you can add the "mystring" value to all those pages and the page will still load.

If you want to know how how change text in your links, please raise your prize as it is a lot of work so far.

let me know if it work (as it does on my end).
- wjm

wjm comments:

the above when visiting this page:
http://localhost/foofoo-1-hello-world/
outputs this html:

this code

<p>Mystring: <strong>foofoo</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://localhost/foofoo-1-hello-world/">This Post</a></p>
<p><a href="http://localhost/foofoo-35-just-another-post/">Other Post</a></p>