get_term_link() returns correct - But illogical error-messages disturb

Question

I've a really strange issue with Wordpress and the get_the_link()-function and a following issue with objects who are objects, but identified as non-object-error, itself they are working.

First the get_term_link() Issue:

If I ask with a normal number and taxonomy, it works well: $tax_name = 'products'; print get_term_link(13, $tax_name);

It returns the url, but if I do it like following: $tax_id = (int)$navItem['id']; $tax_name = 'products'; print get_term_link($tax_id , $tax_name);

I got the error-message:

Catchable fatal error: Object of class WP_Error could not be converted to string in /home/username/www/domainname/wp-content/themes/theme/sidebar-left.php on line 89

Which last line was 89. ( var_dump of tax_id was int(13) )

Without the (int) before the navItem['id] var_dump resulted in string(2).

Tried this with a get_term_by()-function as source, too. $term = get_term_by('id', $navItem['id'], $tax_name); $tax_id = $term->term_id; var_dump($tax_id); $tax_name = 'products'; print get_term_link($tax_id , $tax_name);

Got a new error message as additional :

Notice: Trying to get property of non-object in /home/username/www/domainname/wp-content/themes/theme/sidebar-left.php on line 88

What's wrong, because line 88 is in this example "$tax_id = $term->term_id;"! I can use (int) but this don't change the error-message.

The funny thing is, the $term variable is an object. And this error message explains me that I try to get a property from a non-object. If I convert this object to an array (get_object_vars()-function), and access the values in the array like an array (name[key])

I get the following error message:

get_object_vars() expects parameter 1 to be object, null given line 86

I tried to convert them to integer, then to string. Tried to use slug instead of ID. But nothing worked. The results working!

Yeah! All showed lines returning the correct link-url!

But I get this error messages... and I don't understand why. Because... they are totally illogical for me. But I think or more, I hope that I'm the illogical part of this issue and someone can help me to solve/understand this.

And NO... I don't like to turn/hide the error-messages.

Answer 1

get_term_link() will return a WP_Error object on error.

You can't print an object or array or you will get messages similar to what you are getting. Use var_dump() instead or print_r() and you should see what is occuring. Your error even tells you that WP_Error is the object involved.

You are getting errors when the term you are looking for is not found.

And yes, you should hide your error messages on a production site. They can be revealing. Write to a log if you must have errors on the production site.