Dynamically create shortcodes using add_shortcode and a callback

Question

In the example below, $shortcodes is a multidimensional array with shortcode data.

foreach( $shortcodes as $shortcode ) {

    // Here we have the shortcode name, could be 'custom_person_john'.
    $shortcode_name = $shortcode['slug'];

    // Anonymous function should be referred to as 'custom_person_john'.
    $shortcode_name = function( $shortcode ) {

      // Build shortcode attributes.
      $atts = shortcode_atts( array(
        'name' => 'john',
        'type' => 'mammal'
      ), $atts );

      $markup = '<div class="'.$atts['name'].'">';
         $markup .= '<div>';
            // $shortcode should contain custom markup from the array.
            $markup .= $shortcode['html'];
         $markup .= '</div>';
      $markup .= '</div>';

      return $markup;

    };

    // Trying to register the shortcode
    add_shortcode( $shortcode['slug'], $shortcode_name( $shortcode ) );

};

So this is not working, but I can't grasps why. If I dump all the registered shortcodes, they don't show up in the list. Trying to load them simple echo's [custom_person_john]. I don't have errors either.

Edit: If anyone has other ideas on how to create them dynamically out of an array, feel free to suggest :)

Answer 1

the shortcodes doesn't shop up in the liste because it's not a valid declaration with a valid function callback on the 2nd argument

try this to see what append :

// shortcode data

add_filter("shortcode_list", function ($shortcode_list) {
    $shortcode_list["slugA"] = array(
        "html" => "test html 1",
    );

    return $shortcode_list;
});

add_filter("shortcode_list", function ($shortcode_list) {
    $shortcode_list["slugB"] = array(
        "html" => "test <strong>html 2 - [slugA]</strong>",
    );

    return $shortcode_list;
});


// shortcodes declaration

add_action("init", function () {

    $shortcodes = apply_filters("shortcode_list", array());

    foreach (array_keys($shortcodes) as $shortcode_slug) {
        add_shortcode($shortcode_slug, "shortcode_callback");
    };

});


// callback function

function shortcode_callback($atts, $content = "", $tag) {

    // Build shortcode attributes.
    $atts = shortcode_atts( array(
        'name' => 'john',
        'type' => 'mammal'
    ), $atts);


    // shortcode data
    $shortcodes = apply_filters("shortcode_list", array());
    $shortcode = $shortcodes[$tag];


    // construct result of the shortcode

    $markup  = "";
    $markup .= '<div class="'.$atts['name'].'">';
        $markup .= '<div>';
            // $shortcode should contain custom markup from the array.
            $markup .= $shortcode['html'];
            //$markup .= do_shortcode($shortcode['html']); // to replace shortcodes in the "html" data


            $markup .= '<pre>';
            $markup .= print_r($atts, TRUE);
            $markup .= '</pre>';

        $markup .= '</div>';
    $markup .= '</div>';

    return $markup;

}

Answer 2

Few months ago I was working on a similar thing where I had to generate short codes dynamically. But I took a different approach.

What I did was as following;

1. I registered a short code and custom post type for which I had to use that dynamic short code.

2. Then added attribute for post name (slug) in that short code to get data dynamically to display on front end.

Here is sample code for how you can do that;

// Shortcode to display html in frontend
// [dynamic_shortcode name='post-slug']
function dynamic_shortcode( $atts ) {

    // Get Attributes
    extract( shortcode_atts(
            array(
                'name' => ''   // DEFAULT SLUG SET TO EMPTY
            ), $atts )
    );

    // WP_Query arguments
    $args = array (
        'name'              =>  $name,     // GET POST BY SLUG  // IGNORE IF YOU ARE GETTING ERROR ON THIS LINE IN YOUR EDITOR
        'post_type'         => 'your-post-type', // YOUR POST TYPE
        'post_status'       => 'publish', // POST STATUS
    );


    // The Query
    $query = new WP_Query( $args );

    // The Loop
    if ( $query->have_posts() && $name != '' ) {
        while ( $query->have_posts() ) {
            $query->the_post();

            $html_src = get_post_meta( get_the_ID() , 'html_src' , true);  // GET HTML SOURCE FROM YOUR POST META

            if ( $html_src) {
                return $html_src; // RETURN HTML TO DISPLAY ON FRONT END
            }

        }
    } else {
        // no posts found
        return '<p style="color: red" >Sorry You have set no html for this slug...</p>';

    }


// Restore original Post Data
    wp_reset_postdata();
}
add_shortcode( 'dynamic_shortcode', 'dynamic_shortcode' );

Hope this might work for you as well.