WordPress: How to create rewrite rules with PHP

On Word­Press, you can crea­te your own Rewri­te Rules using PHP to gene­ra­te indi­vi­du­al URLs. The­re are only 3 steps neces­sa­ry. In this artic­le, I explain how you can easi­ly crea­te your own Rewri­te Rules via PHP for your Word­Press web­site.

Creating the Rewrite Rules #

Word­Press offers the func­tion add_rewrite_rule for crea­ting Rewri­te­Rules.

add_rewrite_rule(string $regex, string|array $query, string $after = 'bottom');

This allows us to crea­te our own rewri­te rules at any time. We use this func­tion by imple­men­ting it in our functions.php.

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add_action('init', function(){
    add_rewrite_rule('job/([a-zA-Z0-9\-]+)/bewerben', 'index.php?pagename=jetzt-bewerben&job-name=$matches[1]','top');
});

In our exam­p­le abo­ve, we now crea­te a new rewri­te rule that out­puts the con­tent of the page ‘https://meine-domain-xyz.de/jetzt-bewerben’ when a URL in this for­mat ‘https://meine-domain-xyz.de/job/elektriker-m‑w‑d/bewerben’ is cal­led. The para­me­ter “page­na­me” is used for this pur­po­se.

Addi­tio­nal­ly, we tell Word­Press that the value bet­ween ‘job’ and ‘app­ly’ should be pas­sed as a GET para­me­ter named ‘job-name’. In order for us to use this para­me­ter on Word­Press, we need to tell the sys­tem that this para­me­ter exists.

Load your own template

Alter­na­tively, you can load an indi­vi­du­al tem­p­la­te via your rewri­te rule. For this, you only have to use the action hook ‘template_include’ and inte­gra­te the tem­p­la­te you want to use.

add_action( 'template_include', function( $template ) {
    if ( false == get_query_var( 'job-name' ) || '' == get_query_var( 'job-name' )) {
        return $template;
    }
 
    return get_template_directory() . '/page-job-name.php';
});

Now, when­ever the ‘job-name’ para­me­ter occurs in the query, the ‘page-job-name.php’ tem­p­la­te is loa­ded and out­put.

Define query parameters (query vars) #

In the rewri­te rule we crea­ted abo­ve, we defi­ned a new para­me­ter ‘job-name’. Howe­ver, in order to use it, we need to regis­ter it with Word­Press first. For this, we use the fil­ter ‘query_vars’ and add our own para­me­ter to the array.

add_filter('query_vars', function($query_vars){
    $query_vars[] = 'job-name';
    return $query_vars;
});

We can then use ‘get_query_var’ to query our para­me­ter in a simp­le and straight­for­ward way.

Rewrite Rules Clear Cache #

Final­ly, we need to rel­oad the cache for the rewri­te rules. For this, we can eit­her use the func­tion flush_rewrite_rules, or sim­ply press the “Save” but­ton in the Word­Press Dash­board > Set­tings > Per­ma­links.

Important: If you deci­de to use the flush_rewrite_rules func­tion, you should make sure to remo­ve it again. Other­wi­se, the rewri­te rules will be rege­ne­ra­ted every time your Word­Press web­site is loa­ded and will affect the per­for­mance of your web­site.

Summary #

That was it. Word­Press, thanks to its modu­la­ri­ty, allows us to quick­ly and easi­ly defi­ne our own rewri­te rules that we can cus­to­mi­ze to our needs. Have you alre­a­dy crea­ted your own rewri­te rules or do you have fur­ther sug­ges­ti­ons, plea­se let us know.