wp_nav_menu container is not set when menu isn't defined

[dannydehaan]

When you use wp_nav_menu in your theme, but the actual menu isn't set via the backend menu interface, the container provided in the args is ignored and falls back to 'div'.

Attached diff always uses container provided in args, if 'div' or 'nav' is provided. If no container arg is provided, falls back to using 'div'.

wp_nav_menu(
	array(
		'theme_location' => 'main_menu',
		'container'      => 'nav',
		'menu_class'     => 'main-menu-navigation',
	)
);

To test this: Use this function in your theme, without assigning a menu to this theme_location.

[ocean90]

Related: #13998, #18232, #13979, #18842

[chriscct7]

The patch for this was declined by Nacin in #13998

[callumbw95]

Hi All,

I have just read through this ticket and caught myself up with the history. As discussed, the current behavior is by design. wp_nav_menu is intended to render defined navigation menus and their associated containers. When no menu is specified, it explicitly falls back to wp_page_menu, which is a distinct function designed for rendering a list of pages with its own container. Changing wp_nav_menu to output a container for wp_page_menu fallback would be a significant architectural alteration, potentially leading to other inconsistencies or unintended side effects, and goes against the distinct roles of these two functions. Themes requiring a consistent wrapper regardless of whether a menu is defined can implement this wrapping directly around the wp_nav_menu call in their templates.

Because of the reasons mentioned and the extreme age of this ticket I have marked this ticket as wontfix, but please feel free to reopen the ticket and continue this discussion.