Need a method to prevent WP from adding <br> in between my shortcodes

Question

I have tried out a few things to remove the <br> being created in between shortcodes, I found one in another thread, it looked promising, but it didn't work out:

function the_content_filter($content) {
    $block = join("|",array("category_product_list", "category_products"));
    $rep = preg_replace("/(<p>)?\[($block)(\s[^\]]+)?\](<\/p>|<br \/>)?/","[$2$3]",$content);
    $rep = preg_replace("/(<p>)?\[\/($block)](<\/p>|<br \/>)?/","[/$2]",$rep);
return $rep;
}
add_filter("the_content", "the_content_filter");

I was reading that wpautop could do the trick but nothing is working for me. Do I need to modify my actual shortcode somehow?

Here's one of the shortcodes I'm working with:

function category_product_list( $atts ) {

    extract(shortcode_atts(array(
        'category'      => '',
        'per_page'  => -1,
        'orderby' => 'title',
        'order' => 'asc'
    ), $atts));

    $meta_query  = WC()->query->get_meta_query();
    $tax_query   = WC()->query->get_tax_query();
    $tax_query[] = array(
        'taxonomy' => 'product_cat',
        'field'    => 'slug',
        'terms'    => array( esc_attr($category) ),
        'operator' => 'IN',
    );
    $args = array(
        'post_type'   =>  'product',
        'post_status' => 'publish',
        'ignore_sticky_posts'   => 1,
        'posts_per_page' => $per_page,
        'orderby' => $orderby,
        'order' => $order,
        'meta_query'  =>  $meta_query,
        'tax_query'   => $tax_query
    );

    $products = new WP_Query( $args );


    if ( $products->have_posts() ) :

        $term_list = wp_get_post_terms($products->post->ID, 'product_cat', array("fields" => "all"));
        $first_term = $term_list[0];
        $first_term_name = $first_term->name;
        $url = get_permalink();
        $id = $products->post->ID;

        // $html_out = '<h2>Courses</h2>';

        $html_out = '<ul class="simple-sitemap-courses">';

            $html_out .= '<li class="page-item page-item-' . $id . '"><a href="' . $url . '">' . $first_term_name . '</a>';

                $html_out .= '<ul class="children">';

                while ($products->have_posts()) :   
                    $products->the_post();  
                    $product = get_product( $products->post->ID );

                    $course_title = get_the_title();
                    $url = get_permalink();
                    $id = $products->post->ID;

                    // Output product information here

                    $html_out .= '<li class="page-item page-item-' . $id . '"><a href="' . $url . '">' . $course_title . '</a></li>';

                endwhile;

                $html_out .= '</ul>';

            $html_out .= '</li>';

        $html_out .= '</ul>';

    else : // No results
        $html_out = "No Courses Found.";
    endif; 

    wp_reset_postdata();

    return $html_out;
}
add_shortcode( 'category_product_list', 'category_product_list' );

Answer 1

I created a simple shortcode and added it two times to a page like so:

[my-shortcode]something[/my-shortcode]
[my-shortcode]else[/my-shortcode]

As you can see, I added a line break (<br />) after the first shortcode. So in the frontend it is also shown like this:

something
else

And in the HTML:

<span>something</span>
<br />
<span>else</span>

Than I also used the the_content filter but with strtr() like this:

    function remove_br_from_shortcodes($content){

        // look for the string "]<br />" and replace it just with "]"
        $replace = array (
            ']<br />' => ']'
        );
        $content = strtr($content, $replace);

        return $content;

    }
    add_filter('the_content', 'remove_br_from_shortcodes');

After refreshing the page, the frontend now shows:

something else

In the HTML:

<span>something</span>
<span>else</span>

As the name of the_content filter already suggests, it is a filter for the normal post/page content, not, for example text-widgets or excerpts.

If you also want to remove paragraphs (<p>) than please try adding this in the $replace array: (watch your comma´s!)

'<p>[' => '[',
']</p>' => ']',

With the PHP strtr() function, you can replace certain characters in a string. More to read here.

Answer 2

Try wrapping the shortcodes in <div> or <span> tags, if that's an option.