Don't return anchor tag if link is empty in get_the_author_posts_link()

[SirkoSchindler]

If get_author_posts_url() returns an empty value, currently get_the_author_posts_link() creates an anchor tag with am empty target. If shown on the page this results in a link to the current page, which is not what is expected from an author link.

https://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/4.7.2/src/wp-includes/author-template.php#L252

The attached patch changes this, so that if no link is given, just the author name is returned with no anchor tag surrounding.
This is in line with the respective code for get_comment_author_link()

https://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/4.7.2/src/wp-includes/comment-template.php#L216

[SirkoSchindler]

Any updates or comments on this?

[sabernhardt]

To work on this, I removed and then changed the author's URL with the author_link hook:

add_filter( 'author_link', '__return_empty_string' );

add_filter( 'author_link', function(){ return 'http://'; } );

The patch is refreshed, but it still should have unit tests.

Trac ticket: #39844