has_shortcode not detected?

• Francois V

• January 3, 2019 at 3:44 am

Hi,

I’m using a simple custom function to load “contact form 7” javascript, only when the shortcode is in the content. This to prevent loading it on every page…

In function.php

// CF7 prevent loading cf7 css and js
add_filter( 'wpcf7_load_js', '__return_false' );
add_filter( 'wpcf7_load_css', '__return_false' );

// Load only if shortcode
function vanois_load_cf7() {
    global $post;
    if( has_shortcode( $post->post_content, 'contact-form-7')) {
        wpcf7_enqueue_scripts(); 
    }
}
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'vanois_load_cf7' );

The shortcode

[contact-form-7 id="140" title="Contact"]

This works like a charm when the shortcode is in the genuine wordpress editor (classic editor).

This doesn’t work when the shortcode is inserted in a ACF wysiwyg field :
– the shortcode is taken into account and the form is displayed.
– but the shortcode is not detected and my function is not fired (and so the javascript is not loaded).

Is the global variable “$post” working in such case ?
Is the shortcode “processed” by ACF before updating the $post variable ?

I’ve been searching for hours in this forum, without success.
Thank for your precious help.

• John Huebner

• January 3, 2019 at 9:53 am

When you use an ACF field and get the value of the field it is already formatted and any shortcodes are already run when you get the value.

If you want to test for the shortcode in the content then you need to get the unformatted value get_field('field_name', false, false) The 2nd parameter is the post ID, setting to false uses the current post ID and the 3rd parameter tells ACF to not format the value.

Another option would be to test the formatted content to see if it contains a form.

• Francois V

• January 3, 2019 at 9:26 pm

Hi John,

Thank you for your answer.
I change my function and it works well.

For the records :

<?php
// CF7 Kill all
add_filter( 'wpcf7_load_js', '__return_false' );
add_filter( 'wpcf7_load_css', '__return_false' );
// Load only if shortcode
function vanois_load_cf7() {
    // if shortcode in acf fields flexible content
    if(have_rows('flexible_content')) {
        while (have_rows('flexible_content')) : 
            the_row();
            $raw_data = get_row();
            $cf7_shortcode = preg_grep("/contact-form-7/", $raw_data);
        endwhile;
        if ($cf7_shortcode) {
            wpcf7_enqueue_scripts(); 
        }
    // else if no flexible-content, check shortcode in wp default editor    
    } else {
        global $post;
        if( has_shortcode( $post->post_content, 'contact-form-7')) {
            wpcf7_enqueue_scripts(); 
        } 
    }
}
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'vanois_load_cf7' );
?>

• francesca

• April 4, 2019 at 4:27 am

For anyone who might be stuck on a similar problem, after a lot of searching, and trial-erroring, I came up with a bodged solution that deals with this, which uses $wpdb, so there’s no hardcoding a specific meta_key. Originally I bound this to ACF being active, but realised it can work for any post meta.

global $post;

//	using $wpdb, grab all post_meta for the current post_id
//	then ignore all meta_keys beginning with an underscore
//	then search the all remaining ones for the shortcode
//	if the post's meta_values has the shortcode anywhere, do stuff
global $wpdb;
$post_id = $post->ID;
$post_meta_sql = "select * from $wpdb->postmeta where post_id = {$post_id} and meta_key not like '\_%' and meta_value like '%[shortcode]%'";
$post_meta_results = $wpdb->get_results( $post_meta_sql );

//	run the has_shortcode() as usual, works for all the_content() cases

if ( is_a( $post, 'WP_Post' ) && has_shortcode( $post->post_content, 'shortcode' ) ) {

	//	do stuff
	return required_shortcode_js();

}

//	for shortcodes in post_meta

else if ( is_a( $post, 'WP_Post' ) && ! empty( $post_meta_results ) ) {

	//	do stuff
	return required_shortcode_js();

}

No idea what sort of performance hit doing this might cause, and can think of a number of cases where it could fail. There is a Core ticket open for this issue here: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/36958, which might be another way of doing it.

• ahmadkarim

• April 19, 2023 at 5:43 pm

This works for shortcodes that do not have any attributes. i.e, [the_shortcode]
But when it has an attribute i.e, [the_shortcode attr1=”aaa”] it will not work. Do you have any suggestions for that? Thanks!

• ahmadkarim

• April 19, 2023 at 6:20 pm

This worked for me

$post_meta_sql = "select * from $wpdb->postmeta where post_id = {$post_id} and meta_key not like '\_%' and meta_value like '%[shortcode%]'";