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2

Right now my shortlink structure looks something like this:

example.com/?p=451

I would prefer it to look more like this:

example.com/abc123

Any ideas how I can alter the code to do just this?

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Do you mean edit the core file itself? If so, that's probably not a good idea as it makes upgrading harder. A plugin would be the way to go. – chrisguitarguy Aug 29 '11 at 18:34
@Christopher Davis This is true...Ahhh I was trying to avoid a plugin as many seem to slow down my sites. – Matt Aug 29 '11 at 21:07
2  
Plugins don't slow down sites. Overly complex plugins that try to do too much slow down sites. I run upwards of 50 plugins and have no issues. Just something to keep in mind: simple is better. – Otto Aug 29 '11 at 22:14

2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Okay, so, as mentioned in my comment to you: altering core files is not a good idea. But here is a plugin solution.

First we're going to create our own rewrite rules that rewrite s/123 (replace 123 with a post ID) to index.php?short=123. We'll also have to filter the WordPress query variables so we can use them later.

<?php
add_action( 'init', 'wpse26869_add_rewrites' );
function wpse26869_add_rewrites()
{
    add_rewrite_rule( '^s/(\d+)$', 'index.php?short=$matches[1]', 'top' );
}

add_filter( 'query_vars', 'wpse26869_query_vars', 10, 1 );
function wpse26869_query_vars( $vars )
{
    $vars[] = 'short';
    return $vars;
}

The add_rewrite_rule call says "rewite s followed by a slash and a string of one or more digits to index.php?short=the_string_of_digits.

Then we can hook into template redirect and see if our query variable is there. If it is, we'll try and get a permalink out of it. If that fails, we'll throw a 404 error. Otherwise, we'll use `wp_redirect' to send folks to the actual post.

<?php
add_action( 'template_redirect', 'wpse26869_shortlink_redirect' );
function wpse26869_shortlink_redirect()
{
    // bail if this isn't a short link
    if( ! get_query_var( 'short' ) ) return;
    global $wp_query;

    $id = absint( get_query_var( 'short' ) );
    if( ! $id )
    {
        $wp_query->is_404 = true;
        return;
    }

    $link = get_permalink( $id );
    if( ! $link )
    {
        $wp_query->is_404 = true;
        return;
    }

    wp_redirect( esc_url( $link ), 301 );
    exit();
}

Finally, we hook into get_shortlink to change how our rel="shortlink" appears in the <head> section of the site, and elsewhere. This new shortlink structure will reflect the rewrite rule we wrote above.

<?php
add_filter( 'get_shortlink', 'wpse26869_get_shortlink', 10, 3 );
function wpse26869_get_shortlink( $link, $id, $context )
{
    if( 'query' == $context && is_single() )
    {
        $id = get_queried_object_id();
    }
    return home_url( 's/' . $id );
}

As a plugin: https://gist.github.com/1179555

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you're the man. Thank you. – Matt Aug 31 '11 at 20:07
I'm actually having a little bit of trouble with this plugin. Right now my ShortUrl (without any plugin or modification to WordPress) looks like this structure: example.com/?p=451 How can I get it to look like this: example.com/short451 (I guess 451 is the post id?) – Matt Sep 2 '11 at 13:37
You need to change your permalink settings to pretty permalinks. settings > permalinks – chrisguitarguy Sep 2 '11 at 14:00
do I need to somehow activate this option? I don't see it in settings > permalinks – Matt Sep 2 '11 at 15:46
1  
One redirect happens. example.com/s/121 is rewritten, not redirected. The function hooked into template_redirect actually does the redirect from short URL to the canonical permalink. – chrisguitarguy Jul 2 '12 at 4:56
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up vote 0 down vote

Aside from @ChristopherDavis's answer, you can also do it in a PHP independent way, using .htaccess. Simply add this rule:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^s/(\d+)$ index.php?p=$1 [L]

Alternative without mod_rewrite, using mod_alias:

RedirectMatch Permanent ^/s/(\d+)$ /?p=$1

The only problem is, two redirects happen here (instead of 1) — (for example) if user visits http://example.com/s/121/ he is redirected by the web server to http://example.com/index.php?p=121/ and then by WordPress to the actual permalink of the post.

The advantage is, this never breaks! Plugins may break, but this does not.

PS: I use this (short link structure would be http://example.com/-121 where 121 is post ID):

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^-(\d+)$ index.php?p=$1 [L]
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