How to get the clean permalink in a draft?

Question

When I use the_permalink or get_the_permalink in a draft or scheduled post, the URL provided is not the "final" permalink—it is the unpretty ?p=xxxxx version.

How can I get the final, "clean" permalink to show up in a draft or scheduled post?

I could do something involving $post->post_name, but I'd need the path as well, and that varies from post type to post type and depends on permalink structure. Is there a "universal" way to do this?

Answer 1

This is a little "hacky", but when you call get_permalink and you need the permalink from a draft, provide a clone of your post object with the details filled in:

global $post;
if (in_array($post->post_status, array('draft', 'pending', 'auto-draft'))) {
    $my_post = clone $post;
    $my_post->post_status = 'published';
    $my_post->post_name = sanitize_title($my_post->post_name ? $my_post->post_name : $my_post->post_title, $my_post->ID);
    $permalink = get_permalink($my_post);
} else {
    $permalink = get_permalink();
}

Answer 2

Since editor displays projected permalink for slug editor, it must have some way to figure it out. From looking at source that is handled by get_sample_permalink_html() and get_sample_permalink().

Since we only need link without form cruft, we can rework it into something like:

function get_draft_permalink( $post_id ) {

    require_once ABSPATH . '/wp-admin/includes/post.php';
    list( $permalink, $postname ) = get_sample_permalink( $post_id );

    return str_replace( '%postname%', $postname, $permalink );
}

No confidence it is foolproof, but works fine from quick test. :)