Allow wp_nav_menu to return just the links (no <li> tags)

[nohalfpixels]

every now and again i find im in the need of the wp_nav_menu function where i only want a list if links, not the outer ul, or the li tags.

there is already scope to remove the outer ul.

but no support for removing the <li> tags from the returned results.

at present i have to do this:

$foot_nav = wp_nav_menu( array( 'container' => '', 'echo' => '0', 'theme_location' => 'footer_menu' ) );
$foot_nav2 = preg_replace( array( '#^<ul[^>]*>#', '#</ul>$#' ), '', $foot_nav );
$foot_nav2 = preg_replace( array( '#<li[^>]*>#', '#</li>$#' ), '', $foot_nav2 );
echo $foot_nav2;

this isnt very clean, it would be nice to just be able to pass a parameter the wp_nav_menu function which just returns the links.

i propose something like:

'return_links' => true,

the main reason for this is styling centered links in the footer.

its much easier to just center links than it is to center a <ul> and results in much cleaner html with less dom elements.

[TobiasBg]

You could use wp_get_nav_menu_items() to get an array with all the elements, without formatting. That way, you could create your own HTML around it, e.g. like they do in ​http://digwp.com/2011/11/html-formatting-custom-menus/

Does that maybe solve your problem?

[nohalfpixels]

thanks, that worked as well (a little better as theres no need to replace parts of the string which allways seems cleaner).

i still think this could be streamlined a little with the wp_nav_menu function.

effectivley reducing what the function returns if the flag is set.

[chriscct7]

No interest in 4+ years, and a proposed solution is above