Permalink structure as code in back-end?

Question

I have this permalink structure: /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/

What I want to is, output the link of a post in the back-end and let users input a postname, that will automatically lead to that post (if it exists, otherwise 404)...

So, I have this:

function transform_pseudo_anchor_wpse_101201($match) {
  if (isset($match[1])) {
    return '(link: <a href="http://example.com/'.sanitize_title_with_dashes($match[1]).'" title="'.$match[1].'">'.$match[1].'</a>)';
  }
}

$content = preg_replace_callback(
  '%\(link: ?(.*?) ?\)%', 
  'transform_pseudo_anchor_wpse_101201', 
  $content
); 
echo $content; 

Of course, this does not work... But how can I make it work? So I want the get the exact link if someone links to a post that exists... So after example.com, the year/monthnum and postname has to come...

Answer 1

Your code works to create links, and WordPress should make a valiant effort to find the correct post, but it doesn't get complete permalinks. To do that you will need to query the database for the post and construct a permalink if one is found.

function transform_pseudo_anchor_wpse_101201($match) {
  global $wpdb;
  if (isset($match[1])) {
    $name = sanitize_title_with_dashes($match[1]);
    $p = new WP_Query(
      array(
        'name'=>$name,
        'post_type' => 'post',
        'posts_per_page' => 1,
        'suppress_filters' => true,
        'ignore_sticky_posts' => true
      )
    );
    if (!empty($p->posts[0])) {
      $link = get_permalink($p->posts[0]);
      return '(link: <a href="'.$link.'" title="'.$match[1].'">'.$match[1].'</a>)';
    } else {
      return 'nada';
    }
  }
}