Shortcode always displaying at the top of the page

Question

I'm using a shortcode to pull in different loops via the loops-name.php. For some reason it is always at the top of the page. I googled it and using echo instead of return causes that problem but with my code I am not using echo. Here's the shortcode:

// setup the shortcode for use
function friendly_loop_shortcode( $atts, $content = null ) {
extract( shortcode_atts( array(
'category' => '',
'module' => ''
), $atts ) );

include(locate_template('loop-'.$module.'.php'));
 }

Any idea why this is happening?

Answer 1

You can buffer the output like this:

ob_start();
include(locate_template('loop-'.$module.'.php'));
return ob_get_clean();

EDIT. I tried this, worked fine.

function friendly_loop_shortcode( $atts, $content = null ) {
     extract( shortcode_atts( array(
         'category' => '',
         'module' => ''
     ), $atts ) );

     ob_start();
     include(locate_template('loop-'.$module.'.php'));
     $output = ob_get_clean();
     //print $output; // debug
     return $output;
}

if (!is_admin()) {
     add_shortcode('test', 'friendly_loop_shortcode' );
}

Answer 2

Your included file is essentially echo-ing HTML. For instance

<?php
 //Some PHP
 echo 'test';
 //Some more PHP
 ?>

Is the same as

<?php
 //Some PHP 
 ?>
 test
<?php
 //Some more PHP
 ?>

Both get printed immediately rather than returned. Since its printed it appears before the page content. You need to return something for it be included in the content.

As @RutwickGangurde pointed out - it's unusual to include a template file in a shortcode.