Include Parent functions.php in Child Theme functions.php

Question

I'm trying to include my parents themes functions.php include into my child theme functions.php.

I have a standard setup for a functions.php in my parent.

This is what i have in my child themes functions.php

<?php
/**
 * Base functions and definitions.
 *
 * @link https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/basics/theme-functions/
 *
 * @package Base
 */

locate_template( array( '/vendor/autoload.php', '/functions.php' ), true, false );

the autoload.php file contains things like timber framework which works, it it doesn't seem to bring in the parent functions.php

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks Jake.

Answer 1

As per @toscho's comments, the parent theme is always loaded after the child theme's. In this way, if you want to override a parent theme's function you can rewrite it and the original will be ignored, whereas any functions you didn't rewrite are loaded and available.

There is no need to do it the other way around. If you are just loading additional files and defining actions and filters (as you should) there is no reason to worry about the order in which both function files are loaded, because at this point WP is just making an inventory of code to execute, not actually executing.

So, that gives you plenty of freedom to define additional settings in your child theme's functions.php, even if the parent's one has not been loaded yet.

Answer 2

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to achieve, but it sounds like you're trying to overwrite functions from your parent theme in your child theme.

If this is the case you should make the parent function pluggable:

if ( ! function_exists( 'your_function' ) ) {

  function your_function() {
  }

}

Then you are able to define a function in your child theme with the same name. In this case, the child function will be used since it's loaded first, and the parent checks if the function exists.

function your_function() {
}