php notices with the_widget().

[mfields]

the_widget() generates php notices when not passed $args and $instance parameters. To my knowledge these parameters are intended to be optional. To reproduce:

1. Define WP_DEBUG as true in wp_config.php
2. Please the following code in any template file in your active theme:

<?php
	the_widget( 'WP_Widget_Archives' );
	the_widget( 'WP_Widget_Calendar' );
	the_widget( 'WP_Widget_Categories' );
	the_widget( 'WP_Nav_Menu_Widget' );
	the_widget( 'WP_Widget_Links' );
	the_widget( 'WP_Widget_Meta' );
	the_widget( 'WP_Widget_Pages' );
	the_widget( 'WP_Widget_Recent_Comments' );
	the_widget( 'WP_Widget_Recent_Posts' );
	the_widget( 'WP_Widget_RSS' );
	the_widget( 'WP_Widget_Search' );
	the_widget( 'WP_Widget_Tag_Cloud' );
	the_widget( 'WP_Widget_Text' );
?>

I have attached a patch that I believe eliminates all notices. Please let me know your thoughts.

Fixes notices in widgets.

It seems like even an empty title should be passed through the widget_title filter.

Good call. I think you're totally right about this.

I'm not sure that these are really widget bugs.

If these notices only show when widgets are loaded via the_widget then it may be because these items are required configuration for the widget that the theme should be providing.

If we do make the changes here we can revert - [17672]

#17755

#16281

#16131 is not included in this patch, if it's in we can close it too.

#18595

Replying to westi:

If these notices only show when widgets are loaded via the_widget then it may be because these items are required configuration for the widget that the theme should be providing.

Most of these widgets have default configurations and should fall back to them properly.
As I mentioned in #18595, Google shows a lot of results with these notices, so it would be nice to fix them.

Refreshed the patch for 3.3.

In [18676]:

Fix Notices in default Widgets when called using the_widget(). Fixes #16761 props mfields and SergeyBiryukov

In [18677]:

Set a consistent cache key when using the_widget to display the Recent Posts and Recent Comments widgets so that they get cached. See #16761.

Related #16159.

The "Rrecent Post widget" and the "Recent Comments widget" have no args filters.