[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #17134: Add support for the_slug() in template tags

[WordPress Trac]

#17134: Add support for the_slug() in template tags
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 Reporter:  tomauger               |       Owner:
     Type:  feature request        |      Status:  reopened
 Priority:  normal                 |   Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  Template               |     Version:
 Severity:  normal                 |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  2nd-opinion has-patch  |
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Comment (by nacin):

 I think only bad things can come from using this function.

  1. Filters don't make sense here. Title, content, excerpt, etc. have
 filters because raw content is stored in the database and we clearly need
 to process it before displaying it. With a sanitized post slug, that is
 not the case. There is no processing that should occur. The filter just
 doesn't make sense — if you are going to have a function that returns the
 slug, it would be best unfiltered as it is raw data.

  2. It may be used, improperly, to construct a URL. Never underestimate
 the ingenuity of fools. Someone, somewhere, will do `<a href="/<?php
 the_slug(); ?>/">`. Why? Because there isn't another obvious use case for
 such a function.

  3. For hierarchical post types, I don't know if this is the expected
 return value.

  4. It may be used, improperly, as an HTML ID or class name, or a more
 restrictive field. There is no guarantee that an unprocessed slug meets
 the standards of one of these attributes. It could potentially have
 uppercase characters, spaces, periods, international characters, and other
 special characters, because the sanitization is flexible and may be
 modified by plugins. (Example: api.jquery.com allows periods and uppercase
 characters.) A class name should really go through sanitize_html_class(),
 which makes me wonder what an echo-based `the_slug()` could ever be used
 for.

 And if there is no good use of `the_slug()`, do we even need the
 associated getter? As stated, A) there is no common use case for this,
 which basically means no template tag is necessary, and B) this is raw
 data, which further limits the reason for having a template tag. At that
 point, one should use `get_post( optional $id )->post_name`.

 I have yet to do a Google search for the_slug but I think I would be hard-
 pressed to find valid and common use cases among the results.

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Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/17134#comment:14>
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