Link function names to codex

Question

It would be really easy if function names would automagically be linked to the codex, the function reference or the Trac browser. If someone could create a solution that does this via Javascript, we could probably convince the powers that be to add it here (if Math Overflow can have MathJax to format formulas, surely we can have something too!).

Answer 1

Now that my QueryPosts (meta) WordPress code reference site had launched - in case connecting to Codex is complicated or not preferable... I will be very, verrrry open to provide such API to be used by WPSE. :)

Answer 2

I think it would be great if posters would include more links to the things they reference in-line with their questions. Makes the site much more useful. I feel like the WYSIWYG tool is pretty explicit, and I would prefer it NOT to add links if I don't want it to. Also, links are not allowed within a block of source code.

Maybe another thought would be to have named functions listed after the answer or question, like:

Functions referenced in this answer: is_admin(), wp_enqueue_script()

... with each one linked?

Answer 3

I have inquired about this in mod room and it was suggested as first step that easy to use endpoint would be strong requirement to consider this.

Function pages in Codex follow specific title

Function Reference/the content

and URL structure:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/the_content

Since Codex is is powered by MediaWiki it exposes its API and it is possible to query for a page by title:

http://codex.wordpress.org/api.php?action=query&prop=info&inprop=url&titles=Function_Reference/the_content

Gives:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<api>
  <query>
    <normalized>
      <n from="Function_Reference/the_content" to="Function Reference/the content" />
    </normalized>
    <pages>
      <page pageid="765" ns="0" title="Function Reference/the content" touched="2012-01-03T22:52:29Z" lastrevid="110295" counter="18814" length="4259" fullurl="http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/the_content" editurl="http://codex.wordpress.org/index.php?title=Function_Reference/the_content&amp;action=edit" />
    </pages>
  </query>
</api>

If page is missing:

http://codex.wordpress.org/api.php?action=query&prop=info&inprop=url&titles=not_a_function

Gives:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<api>
  <query>
    <normalized>
      <n from="not_a_function" to="not a function" />
    </normalized>
    <pages>
      <page ns="0" title="not a function" missing="" fullurl="http://codex.wordpress.org/not_a_function" editurl="http://codex.wordpress.org/index.php?title=not_a_function&amp;action=edit" />
    </pages>
  </query>
</api>

Response format can be customized, as well as other properties. I am not very proficient with it, just put this together from API docs.

Answer 4

We could start creating tags for functions and include the Codex Url in the tag wiki.

It would also give you a list of all questions about the function by clicking hovering over the tag.

Update:

I made a tag wiki edit for query-posts Using the same format as Rarst's queryposts.com format.

The Stack Exchange javascript already includes a regex parser for turning [tag:some-tag] into some-tag so it shouldn't be impossible to add something similar using http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/tagged_function as the url to output. We would also have to convert - to _ since our tags use a hyphen instead of an underscore.

Stack Exchange tag parsing regex function:

function(b, c, d, a, g, i) {
        for (var j = $(b).val(), p = sanitizeAndSplitTags(j, !0), s = !1, q = 0; q < p.length; q++)
            0 != $.trim(p[q]).length && ($©.children().each(function() {
                $(this).text() == p[q] && ($(this).fadeTo(500, 0.1).fadeTo(500, 1), s = !0)
            }), s || (j = $.URLEncode(p[q]), $©.append('<a id="' + p[q] + '" href="/questions/tagged/' + j + '" class="' + a + '" title="show questions tagged \'' + 
            p[q] + "'\">" + p[q] + "</a> "), e(d)), s = !1);
        $(b).val("");
        g && $(b).focus();
        i || f(d, $©.text());
        h()
    }

Answer 5

I'm tagging this as a favorite so I can quickly get back to this URL via meta:

• http://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/3.0.1/wp-includes/post-template.php#L775

Or more generally:

• http://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/<version>/<file path>#<line no.>