wp_die() to accept text_direction = 'ltr'

[apedog]

wp_die() only accepts text_direction='rtl'. It should accept 'ltr' as well.

If site language/locale is set to an rtl language, but a plugin produces a message that does not have a translation text to that rtl language, there is no way to make wp_die() style that message correctly.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Hi there, thanks for the ticket.

This appears to be a bit trickier than I thought.

_wp_die_process_input() actually supports both `rtl` and `ltr`​, however _default_wp_die_handler() only uses that value if `language_attributes()` and `is_rtl()` are not available yet​, otherwise it just uses get_language_attributes().

Introduced in [16392].

The passed text_direction argument would need to overwrite the one from get_language_attributes().

Some potential solutions:

• Use str_replace() to overwrite dir="rtl" with dir="ltr" if $parsed_args['text_direction'] is ltr.
• Add a new parameter to get_language_attributes() with an array of default arguments.

A workaround would be to use the language_attributes filter before calling wp_die():

add_filter(
	'language_attributes',
	function( $output ) {
		return str_replace( 'dir="rtl"', 'dir="ltr"', $output );
	}
);
wp_die( 'Message', 'Title' );

[apedog]

I see.
The way I read this the problem is two-fold

1. _default_wp_die_handler() prefers language_attributes over explicitly passed text_direction. ie. the argument is only a fallback. This is a design issue and is the main problem IMO.

2. _default_wp_die_handler() cannot even know if text_direction was explicitly set in $args or was implicitly set by _wp_die_process_input() in $parsed_args. This is a minor technical issue.

Filtering language_attributes seems like overkill to me.

The way I see it, explicitly passed argument should be paramount. Followed by the current handling.
in _default_wp_die_handler() it should look something like this:

$text_direction = $parsed_args['text_direction'];
if ( ! empty( $args['text_direction'] ) && in_array( $args['text_direction'], array( 'ltr', 'rtl' ), true ) ){
    $dir_attr = "dir='$text_direction'";
} else if ( function_exists( 'language_attributes' ) && function_exists( 'is_rtl' ) ) {
    $dir_attr = get_language_attributes();
} else {
    $dir_attr = "dir='$text_direction'";
}

Note: the if condition is tested against $args - not $parsed_args

[davidbaumwald]

With 5.4 RC1 landing tomorrow, this is being moved to 5.5. If any maintainer or committer feels this can be resolved in time or wishes to assume ownership during a specific cycle, feel free to update the milestone.

[SergeyBiryukov]

wp_die() only accepts text_direction='rtl'. It should accept 'ltr' as well.

To summarize the previous comments a bit, while wp_die() does accept the text_direction argument, it is only used as a fallback if neither language_attributes() nor is_rtl() are available, e.g. if WordPress is loaded in SHORTINIT mode or is not fully loaded in some other way.

Some history:

• The argument was introduced in [11408] / #6132 for a single instance in wp-load.php.
• That instance was later removed in [19760] / #18180, since then the argument is not used anywhere in core.

So, technically both ltr and rtl are already accepted, it's just that get_language_attributes(), once available, overrides the passed text_direction value. The suggestion in this ticket is to flip the order and only use the value of get_language_attributes() if text_direction was not explicitly passed.

49060.2.diff​ simplifies the logic a bit and adds documentation.

[SergeyBiryukov]

In 48607:

I18N: Respect the passed text_direction argument in wp_die().

Previously, the passed value was only used as a fallback if get_language_attributes() is not yet available.

Props apedog.
Fixes #49060.