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I have a very peculiar requirement, hopefully, I can explain it without being too confusing. I created a page template where I list some properties I get from an external XML file, so far no problems, let's say the URL is like this:

http://www.example.com/properties/

Each property has a link that should redirect the user to a "Single Property" page that displays more info about it. I was wondering if there's a way to make the link like this:

http://www.example.com/properties/123

Where 123 would be the id of the property. So if I have the URL like properties/some_id I want to be able to load a view file (like the single.php or page.php files) but specific to this URL condition.

Is this possible?

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75

Add this to your theme's functions.php, or put it in a plugin.

add_action( 'init', 'wpse26388_rewrites_init' );
function wpse26388_rewrites_init(){
    add_rewrite_rule(
        'properties/([0-9]+)/?$',
        'index.php?pagename=properties&property_id=$matches[1]',
        'top' );
}

add_filter( 'query_vars', 'wpse26388_query_vars' );
function wpse26388_query_vars( $query_vars ){
    $query_vars[] = 'property_id';
    return $query_vars;
}

This adds a rewrite rule which directs requests to /properties/ with any combination of numbers following to pagename properties, with the query var property_id set. Just be sure to visit your permalinks settings page and save to flush rewrite rules, so this new rule will be included.

In your page-properties.php template, get_query_var('property_id') will return the property id if it was set, if it's not then show the default properties page.

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  • 5
    This was CLOSE to working for me but I needed to add: add_filter('init','flushRules'); function flushRules(){ global $wp_rewrite; $wp_rewrite->flush_rules(); } – tooshel Nov 13 '12 at 17:52
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    @tooshel you definitely don't want to flush rules on every request, it is an expensive operation and will slow your site to a crawl. you only need to flush rules once, on plugin activation, or just by visiting the permalinks settings page. – Milo Nov 13 '12 at 20:17
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    Yeah, I get that . . . but when you are testing it's nice that it's in there! – tooshel Nov 14 '12 at 20:32
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    A smarter rewrite url regexp might be ^properties/([0-9]+)/?. Otherwise it would match something like example/properties/1 – Ryan Taylor Dec 12 '14 at 17:34
  • @RyanTaylor are you sure about that? it doesn't capture example/properties/1 when I test it. – Milo Dec 12 '14 at 18:14
10

Another way to do it:

add_action('init', function() {
    add_rewrite_rule( '^properties/([0-9]+)/?',
                      'index.php?pagename=properties&property_id=$matches[1]',
                      'top' );
}, 10, 0);

add_action('init', function() {
    add_rewrite_tag( '%property_id%', '([^&]+)' );
}, 10, 0);

Codex Rewrite API/add rewrite rule

Codex Rewrite API/add rewrite tag

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    The accepted answer works with 4.7 (and 4.8), not sure why you think it doesn't. Your code is essentially doing the same thing, add_rewrite_tag adds the query var to the same array as the query_vars filter. – Milo Jul 7 '17 at 17:45
  • @Milo it probably didn’t work for me, but I don’t have a 4.7 handy anymore so I can’t check. I will edit my answer. – Christian Lescuyer Jul 8 '17 at 7:28
  • @Milo Although I personally prefer rewrite tag, but still tested the accepted answer and it works. Just some personal tastes, though. – Jack Johansson♦ Jul 8 '17 at 15:36
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    @JackJohansson rewrite tags are necessary when you're using it in a permastruct. It's just an extra bit of data that WordPress never uses in this case. – Milo Jul 8 '17 at 15:47
  • both rules can be added to the same method, ending up in a cleaner and more useful function to come back to and figure out if doing maintenance work – eballeste Jul 14 '18 at 15:51

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