wptexturize incorrectly escapes attribute quotes after encountering greater-than sign

[icmcnamara]

This appears to be a more generalized version of ticket https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/63426.

The following examples could be run on the the 'init' action hook.

Using the greater-than character within attribute values causes the wptexturize function to incorrectly convert all proceeding quotation marks to decimal code.

<?php
$div_string = '<div data-template="Label <% value %>" data-label="{A \'message\' string}">Content</div>'
echo wptexturize( $div_string );
// Output: 
//    <div data-template="Label <% value %>&#8221; data-label=&#8221;{A &#8216;message&#8217; string}&#8221;>Content</div>
// Expected output:
//    <div data-template="Label <% value %>"; data-label="{A &#8216;message&#8217; string}">Content</div>

This attribute quote escaping "resets" when a less-than symbol is encountered.

$div_string = '<div data-break="3>2" data-broken="b" data-fixer="<" data-working="1">Content</div>';
echo wptexturize( $div_string );
// Output: 
//    <div data-break="3>2&#8243; data-broken=&#8221;b&#8221; data-fixer=&#8221;<" data-working="1">Content</div>

[nickchomey]

I just came across this exact issue with this html

<div data-wp-text='Math.abs(context.count % 2) &gt; 0 ? "odd" : "even"'></div>
<div data-wp-text="Math.abs(context.count % 2) &gt; 0 ? 'odd' : 'even'"></div>
<div data-wp-text='Math.abs(context.count % 2) > 0 ? "odd" : "even"'></div>
<div data-wp-text="Math.abs(context.count % 2) > 0 ? 'odd' : 'even'"></div>

The real cause is _get_wptexturize_split_regex(), which produces this split (on the >)

  12 => '<div data-wp-text=\'Math.abs(context.count % 2) &gt; 0 ? "odd" : "even"\'>',
  13 => '</div>',
 
  15 => '<div data-wp-text="Math.abs(context.count % 2) &gt; 0 ? \'odd\' : \'even\'">',
  16 => '</div>',

  18 => '<div data-wp-text=\'Math.abs(context.count % 2) >',
  19 => ' 0 ? "odd" : "even"\'>',
  20 => '</div>',
 
  22 => '<div data-wp-text="Math.abs(context.count % 2) >',
  23 => ' 0 ? \'odd\' : \'even\'">',
  24 => '</div>',

There was an error in the regex used in _get_wptexturize_split_regex and get_html_split_regex.

As shown in the associated trac ticket, if an HTML attribute contained >, the old regex treated it as the closing > for the element — the pattern [^{>]*> simply consumed everything up to the first > character.}

The new regex instead accounts for quoted attribute values: when it encounters ' or " within a tag, it matches the entire quoted span (including any > inside) as a single atomic unit, using possessive quantifiers to avoid performance issues.

Trac ticket: 63997

## Use of AI Tools

I made another commit that modified the regex a bit further (?:"[^"]*"|\'[^\']*\'|[^<>])*+> in order to handle the edge case in https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/43785. It required some other test cases to change though, but I dont think it matters - it now texturizes invalid html/content.

Also took the liberty of addressing a comment in _get_wptexturize_split_regex to replace it with get_html_split_regex(). All tests still pass.

I went ahead and added/fixed types and docblocks for all the functions in the two files. Let me know if that was excessive and should be reverted...

I went ahead and added/fixed types and docblocks for all the functions in the two files. Let me know if that was excessive and should be reverted...

IMO, always better to fix these things up while touching the files already, like you're doing here. 👍🏻

@westonruter is there anything remaining here that is blocking this from getting merged?