WordPress: get_template_part Function

Don’t you find it tedious to repeat block of codes in different parts of your web project? Think of a scenario where you’re developing a feature-rich blog and on each page, you need to display the website’s header and footer. It’s neither efficient nor maintainable to have duplicate codes throughout your project. This is where the function ‘get_template_part()’ can become your handy toolkit for handling generic HTML structures in your WordPress theme development tasks. This function is a powerful tool for compartmentalizing portions of your WordPress themes and reusing them across various parts of your website.

Let’s say, for instance, you’re enhancing your blog’s theme. You plan to stick a neat special offer section on various pages, and you want it to be easy to update site-wide. By using ‘get_template_part()’, you can isolate this section into a separate template for convenience — tweaking your special offer then becomes a painless, one file affair. This illustrates how crucial template parts can be in helping you achieve a neater, DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) friendly code base, leading to a better-structured and more maintainable project. By knowing when and where to use ‘get_template_part()’, you can simplify your web development process and save ample time for testing, debugging, or sipping your favorite brew.

Syntax

Parameters

• $slug (required): A string that represents the slug name for the generic template. It is used as a prefix in generating the template file name.
• $name (optional): A string or null value that represents the specialization of the template. If provided, it appends the name to the template file name for more specific customization.
• $args (optional): An array of additional arguments to be passed into the included template.

Return Value

This function returns false if no matching template is found, otherwise it includes and displays the found template file within your theme.

How it works

1. The get_template_part function triggers a pre-hook event called “get_template_part_{$slug}” by calling do_action. This allows developers to run custom logic before loading a specific template part.
2. It initializes an empty array called $templates.
3. If a $name parameter is provided, it appends "-{$name}.php" to the $templates array. This allows you to have specialized templates with unique names within your theme directory.
4. It then adds “{$slug}.php” – representing the generic template file – to the end of the $templates array.
5. The get_template_part function triggers another pre-hook event called “get_template_part” by calling do_action. This hook allows developers to perform any additional operations before attempting to locate and load the actual template files.
6. It uses the locate_template function to locate the template files in the theme directory, based on the order specified in the $templates array. If a template file is found, it will be included and displayed.
7. If no matching template is found, the function returns false.

Note: Template files are commonly located in the theme directory’s root or within a subdirectory. The get_template_part function follows a specific naming convention for finding template files based on the given $slug and optional $name.

Usage

Example 1: How to Pass Parameters into get_template_part

Suppose you want to include a template file called content with some custom data in your plugin. You can use the get_template_part function to achieve this. It allows you to pass parameters that can then be used inside the included template file. Here’s how you can do it:

In this example:

1. We set an array of parameters called $data, which contains a name and age.
2. We call the get_template_part function, passing 'content' as the slug to indicate the template file we want to include, null as the name because we don’t need to specify any specific variation of the template, and $data as the arguments parameter.
3. Inside your template file (content.php), you can access these parameters using variables like $name and $age. For example:

This will include the content.php template file with the provided parameters, dynamically displaying values based on your custom data.

Example 2: How to Replace include get_home_template() with get_template_part

Let’s say you’re developing a custom theme and want more control over including files for displaying your home page. Instead of using include get_home_template(), which limits customization options, you can utilize get_template_part for better flexibility and maintainability. Here’s an example:

In this example:

1. We define a custom function replace_home_template that will be hooked into the home_template action, allowing us to replace get_home_template() with our own logic.
2. Inside this function, we can implement any custom logic required to determine the appropriate template slug or name. Here, we set $template_slug as 'custom-home', but you can change it according to your needs.
3. We call get_template_part with the $template_slug variable passed as the slug parameter. This will include the template file named custom-home.php.
4. By hooking our custom function into home_template, whenever get_home_template() is called, it will instead execute our code and include our custom template file.

With this approach, you have full control over your home page template and can easily adapt it by modifying or adding different variations of custom-home.php.

Example 3: How to Replace include_once $file; with get_template_part

Suppose you’re working on a child theme and want to include a reusable file in multiple templates without directly using PHP’s include_once statement. You can utilize the power of get_template_part for better code organization and reusability. Let’s see an example:

In this example:

1. We define a custom function include_custom_file that will be hooked into the after_header action, indicating where in the theme’s output hierarchy we want to include our custom file.
2. Inside this function, we set $file as the path to our reusable file (custom-file.php) using get_stylesheet_directory() to ensure a child theme compatibility.
3. Instead of directly using include_once $file;, we utilize get_template_part with the slug 'includes/custom-file'. This will automatically search and include the appropriate template file based on WordPress template hierarchy rules.
4. By hooking our custom function into the desired action, you can control when and where the file is included within your theme.

Using get_template_part, you can easily include reusable files without worrying about duplications or complex file paths, making your code more organized and maintainable across various templates in your child theme.

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