Wordpress, PHP, URL Encoding Issue

Question

Wordpress provides a function called "the_permalink()" that returns, you guessed it!, the permalink to a given post while in a loop of posts.

I am trying to URL encode that permalink and when I execute this code:

<?php
print(the_permalink());
$permalink = the_permalink();
print($permalink);
print(urlencode(the_permalink()));
print(urlencode($permalink));
$url = 'http://wpmu.local/graphjam/2008/11/06/test4/';
print($url);
print(urlencode($url));
?>

it produces these results in HTML:

http://wpmu.local/graphjam/2008/11/06/test4/
http://wpmu.local/graphjam/2008/11/06/test4/
http://wpmu.local/graphjam/2008/11/06/test4/
http://wpmu.local/graphjam/2008/11/06/test4/
http%3A%2F%2Fwpmu.local%2Fgraphjam%2F2008%2F11%2F06%2Ftest4%2F

I would expect lines 2, 3 and 5 of the output to be URL encoded, but only line 5 is so. Thoughts?

Answer 1

the_permalink() echoes the permalink

get_the_permalink() returns the permalink so it can be assigned to a variable.

(same goes with most functions in WordPress: the_something() has a get_the_something() to return value instead of echoing it)

Answer 2

According to the docs, the_permalink prints the permalink vs returns it. So, urlencode isn't getting anything to encode.

Try get_permalink.

---

[EDIT]

A little late for an edit, but I didn't realize the print counts were such an issue.

Here's where they're all coming from:

<?php
print(the_permalink());                                // prints (1)
$permalink = the_permalink();                          // prints (2)
print($permalink);                                     // nothing
print(urlencode(the_permalink()));                     // prints (3)
print(urlencode($permalink));                          // nothing
$url = 'http://wpmu.local/graphjam/2008/11/06/test4/'; 
print($url);                                           // prints (4)
print(urlencode($url));                                // prints (5)
?>

Answer 3

@Jonathan has the reason why, and the way you should deal with it in WordPress (ie. use the right function for the job).

Here is how to fix it when there isn't a function that returns a string:

ob_start();
the_permalink();
$permalink = ob_get_clean();
print(urlencode($permalink));