Get WordPress to use another custom "author.php" file ("custom-author-file.php")

Question

currently, this example code in WordPress:

<a href="<?php echo get_author_posts_url(get_the_author_meta('ID')); ?>"><?php the_author(); ?></a>

turns into:

<a href="http://example.com/author/user-name">user-name</a>

If the link is click, it will take the visitor to the author's page and use the "author.php" template file from the current theme to display the page.

How do I get another custom link, something like this:

<a href="<?php echo get_author_posts_url(get_the_author_meta('ID')); ?>"><?php the_author(); ?></a>

to use "custom-author-file.php"?

Answer 1

In author.php:

<?php
get_template_part('custom-author-file');

Alternatively, rename your custom-author-file.php to author.php.

The URL being used in this case isn't relevant, as a template doesn't determine the URL used, it's the other way around. However, I suspect there is more to your question you haven't explained