posts_nav_link() vs. empty <p></p>'s

[jidanni]

Gentlemen, observe all the back bending one needs to do if one
doesn't want the possibility of making empty <p></p>'s:

ob_start(); posts_nav_link(); $z=ob_get_contents(); ob_end_clean();
  if($z){echo "<p>$z</p>\n";}

This is all because there is no way around the 'echo' in
posts_nav_link(), in order so one can test its output before using it.

You may say "ho hum, so what if you make an empty <p></p>".

But I think that is very stupid.

[sivel]

An empty <p></p> will not validate as XHTML 1.0. Would it be acceptable to return &nbsp; if a link would not returned? This would keep the page validating correctly.

[jidanni]

Holy moly, if now it becomes <p>&nbsp;</p>, well, that tells me that me
reporting bugs only can make matters worse!

Anyway, I stuck a <p></p> into one of my
​http://abj.jidanni.org/articles/ mom's pages, and ran it thru

$ validate --version
Offline HTMLHelp.com Validator, Version 1.2.2
by Liam Quinn <liam@htmlhelp.com>

and it worked fine, XHTML header and all.

So at least it is still vaild, no?

[sivel]

I'm thinking adding $before, $after args to the function may be a good way to go. You could include the <p> tags in the $before and $after which would only be output if the links are output. I need to look at the code more carefully, but seems feasible.

What is your opinion?

[sivel]

Patch attached to give $before and $after args to posts_nav_links and next/previous posts links functions.

[filosofo]

For other functions like this we've added a complementary get_* function. Patch attached.

[sivel]

please use filosofo's patch.

[azaozz]

The second patch looks good but what's the point in using optional args (non-translatable too) then creating $defaults array and running it through wp_parse_args()? The optional args will always overwrite the defaults.

Changed it a bit so the defaults aren't overwritten when calling posts_nav_link() without arguments.

[azaozz]

(In [11049]) Add a complementary get_* function for posts_nav_link(), props filosofo, fixes #9094