id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	priority	milestone	component	version	severity	resolution	keywords	cc
16264	Add function get_pages_by_template()	mikeschinkel		"This patch adds a function `get_pages_by_template()` to `/wp-includes/post.php`. It accepts a page template string and returns an array of post objects keyed by the pages that use the template:

{{{
$pages = get_pages_by_template( 'page-about.php' );
}}}

Using WordPress for CMS I've been finding a need to provide links to specific pages in a more robust way than hardcoding their `post_id` or even referencing their `post_name`/`URL slug` and the way I've identified that works well is to locate a page by it's page template. Here a function that a theme might write that would use the function I'm proposing be added:

{{{
function get_about_page_link() {
  $pages = get_pages_by_template( 'page-about.php' );
  if ( count( $pages ) )
    return get_page_link( get_post( $pages[0] )->ID);
  return false;
}  
}}}

Unfortunately WordPress does not have efficient functionality  in core that would allow a themer to lookup a page or a list of pages by their templates thus requiring the theme developer to resort to SQL which is ideally avoided. 

Thus I'm providing this patch to enable a themer to do this lookup without having to resort to SQL.
The patch also fixes a typo that affects phpdoc in the same file: @parem => @param.
"	feature request	new	normal	Awaiting Review	Post Types	3.1	normal		has-patch	mikeschinkel@…