Getting Thumbnail Path rather than Image Tag

Question

I see many methods of showing thumbnails in WordPress, but I'm not immediately sure how I could get only the path to a post's thumbnail rather than the html-ready code generated by functions like the_post_thumbnail() and get_the_post_thumbnail().

What methods are available to me to get only the path of the thumbnail (to set it as a bgimage) rather than the <img /> tag? Do I only have the option of parsing the results of the get_ method or is there an easier way?

Answer 1

Thumbnail is essentially attachment so you can approach from that side - lookup ID with get_post_thumbnail_id() and fetch data with wp_get_attachment_image_src(), like this:

if (has_post_thumbnail()) {
    $thumb = wp_get_attachment_image_src(get_post_thumbnail_id(), 'thumbnail_name');
    echo $thumb[0]; // thumbnail url
}

(source)

Answer 2

get_the_post_thumbnail_url($recent['ID']);

The above did the trick for me! I had to guess the function and it magically worked!

Its is good to mention that I used get_recent_posts loop in the process.

Answer 3

One method would be to convert whatever is returned from get_the_post_thumbnail() to an object, and pull the src attribute:

$thumbnail = new SimpleXMLElement( get_the_post_thumbnail( $postid ) );
print $thumbnail->attributes()->src;

Answer 4

When I need to display a thumbnail that is attached to a post gallery, I use a custom function in my functions.php. It might be over kill for your needs, but it should cover everything.

In this example, I retrieve all the images in a post's gallery, and then display each image in a list item. The list contains the thumbnail image wrapped in an anchor that links to the post the image came from. The output string can easily be customized to your needs.

function get_gallery_image_thumb_list($size){
global $post;
$args = array(
    'numberposts' => null,
    'post_parent' => $post->ID,
    'post_type' => 'attachment',
    'nopaging' => false,
    'post_mime_type' => 'image',
    'order' => 'ASC',
    'orderby' => 'menu_order ID',
    'post_status' => 'any'
);

$attachments =& get_children($args);
if ($attachments) {
    foreach($attachments as $attachment) {
        foreach($attachment as $attachment_key => $attachment_value) {

            $imageID = $attachment->ID;
            $imageTitle = $attachment->post_title;
            $imageCaption = $attachment->post_excerpt;
            $imageDescription = $attachment->post_content;
            $imageAlt = get_post_meta($imageID, '_wp_attachment_image_alt', true);
            $imageArray = wp_get_attachment_image_src($attachment_value, $size, false);
            $imageURI = $imageArray[0]; // 0 is the URI
            $imageWidth = $imageArray[1]; // 1 is the width
            $imageHeight = $imageArray[2]; // 2 is the height

            // Build the <img> string
            $ImgString = '<li><a href="' . get_permalink() . '" title="' . the_title("", "", false) . '"><img src="' . $imageURI . '" width="' . $imageWidth . '" height="' . $imageHeight . '" alt="' . $imageAlt . '" title="' . $imageTitle . '" /></a></li>';
            // Print the image
            echo $ImgString;
            break;
        }
    }
}

unset($args);}

Then call the function and pass in the size of image you want returned (thumbnail, medium, large or full) like so:

get_gallery_image_thumb_list("thumbnail");

This will need to be called in The Loop or a custom loop.