wp_list_categories should display title_li only if the $categories is not empty , or have an option to hide it if $categories is empty

[vilkatis]

This part of wp_list_categories:

if ( $r['title_li'] && 'list' == $r['style'] ) {
$output = '<li class="' . esc_attr( $r['class'] ) . '">' . $r['title_li'] . '<ul>';
}

Should be

if ( $r['title_li'] && 'list' == $r['style'] && (!empty($categories))) {
$output = '<li class="' . esc_attr( $r['class'] ) . '">' . $r['title_li'] . '<ul>';
}

or is this intended behavior?

[boonebgorges]

Thanks for the ticket, vilkatis. Welcome to Trac!

I'm not sure whether it's intended behavior, but it's been like this forever, and I think it'd cause problems to change it so that the title doesn't appear when there are no categories to show.

However, having an option to hide the title if $categories is empty is not a bad idea. Patches welcome.

[vilkatis]

Updated category-template.php with the changes to wp_list_categories.

[vilkatis]

Was wrong about my first patch , changed and tested it , it works

[vilkatis]

Replying to boonebgorges:

Thanks for the ticket, vilkatis. Welcome to Trac!

I'm not sure whether it's intended behavior, but it's been like this forever, and I think it'd cause problems to change it so that the title doesn't appear when there are no categories to show.

However, having an option to hide the title if $categories is empty is not a bad idea. Patches welcome.

Thank you !
I hope I did everything right , I have read the codex about patches.

[boonebgorges]

Thanks, vilkatis! Patch looks pretty good. I'm thinking about the best name for this parameter. It seems to me that most of our existing params of this type begin with 'hide_' - 'hide_empty', 'hide_if_empty', etc. So maybe something like 'hide_title_if_no_cats', which would default to false? My only concern is that it feels a little like a double-negative. See 33460.diff​, which adds unit tests.

[vilkatis]

Yeah your code looks great , it really makes more sense naming it that way. I went over the unit tests to understand them and I think I got the idea of how those work.

What's the next step for me to do ?

[boonebgorges]

In 33764:

Introduce hide_title_if_no_cats parameter to wp_list_categories().

When generating a <ul> using wp_list_categories(), a title <li> element
is put at the top of the term list. Current behavior is that this title <li>
appears even when no terms are found. The new hide_title_if_no_cats param
allows developers to specify that the title should be hidden when the term list
is empty.

Props vilkatis.
Fixes #33460.

[boonebgorges]

In 33765:

After [33764], fix docblock formatting for wp_list_categories().

See #33460.

[boonebgorges]

Replying to vilkatis:

Yeah your code looks great , it really makes more sense naming it that way. I went over the unit tests to understand them and I think I got the idea of how those work.

What's the next step for me to do ?

Nothing. We're done here :) Thanks for the contribution!

[DrewAPicture]

I'd like to suggest that we change the name of the new argument to hide_title_if_empty. This does two things:

1. It's gets us away from pigeonholing the argument to categories, especially since this function can be used with other taxonomies
2. It follows more closely with the naming scheme of other "empty"-related arguments.

On point #1, if/when we move to taxonomy-agnostic namespacing, this would be one less thing we'd have to account for if/when wp_list_categories() becomes a wrapper for a wp_list_terms() function, for instance. Plus I think it's just clearer all around.

[vilkatis]

Changed the name of the argument to hide_title_if_empty in all the relevant places

[boonebgorges]

DrewAPicture - Thanks for chiming in. When patching, I'd originally used hide_title_if_empty, for the reasons you list, but I backed off because I felt that "empty" was ambiguous between an empty *title* and an empty *category list*. (An empty *title* is *never* shown.)

[SergeyBiryukov]

Fixed in [33767].

[SergeyBiryukov]

In 39280:

Taxonomy: Prevent wp_list_categories() from producing not well-nested output if hide_title_if_empty is true.

Props chesio.
Fixes #38839. See #33460.