Add a filter to the locate_template() function

[aristath]

Hello everyone!

I was trying to change the location of the template files today and realized that there's no non-hacky way to do this. Sure template redirecting is a way but it's pretty limited and has a lot of drawbacks.
Instead, we could simply add a filter to the locate_template() function.
So instead of this:

function locate_template($template_names, $load = false, $require_once = true ) {
        $located = '';
        foreach ( (array) $template_names as $template_name ) {
                if ( !$template_name )
                        continue;
                if ( file_exists(STYLESHEETPATH . '/' . $template_name)) {
                        $located = STYLESHEETPATH . '/' . $template_name;
                        break;
                } else if ( file_exists(TEMPLATEPATH . '/' . $template_name) ) {
                        $located = TEMPLATEPATH . '/' . $template_name;
                        break;
                }
        }

        if ( $load && '' != $located )
                load_template( $located, $require_once );

        return $located;
}

We could instead add a filter and do it like this:

function locate_template($template_names, $load = false, $require_once = true ) {
        $located = '';
        foreach ( (array) $template_names as $template_name ) {
                if ( !$template_name )
                        continue;
                if ( file_exists(STYLESHEETPATH . '/' . $template_name)) {
                        $located = STYLESHEETPATH . '/' . $template_name;
                        break;
                } else if ( file_exists(TEMPLATEPATH . '/' . $template_name) ) {
                        $located = TEMPLATEPATH . '/' . $template_name;
                        break;
                }
        }

        if ( $load && '' != $located )
                load_template( $located, $require_once );

        return apply_filters( 'locate_template', $located );
}

That would allow us greater flexibility and would be really easy to customize!

Are there any objections or should I just submit a patch for that?

[SergeyBiryukov]

Duplicate of #13239 and #14310.