Issues with hreflang php function on a multilingual site

I have been asked by one of my clients to troubleshoot why their WordPress website is having issues loading. Their site was build by a different developer and no longer does business with my client anymore so seeking help from them is an issue.

When I was investigating the cause I found the following PHP error:

[09-Jan-2017 04:09:52 UTC] PHP Fatal error: Can't use function return value in write context in /home/*********/public_html/fr/wp-content/themes/********/functions.php on line 121

When looking at the functions.php file I found the below code:

function bs_get_hreflang_tags() {
    ob_start();
    if( !empty( get_field('australia', get_the_ID() ) ) ) : ?>
        <link rel="alternate" href="<?php echo esc_url( get_field('australia', get_the_ID() ) ); ?>" hreflang="en-au" />
    <?php endif;
    if( !empty( get_field('france', get_the_ID() ) ) ) : ?>
        <link rel="alternate" href="<?php echo esc_url( get_field('france', get_the_ID() ) ); ?>" hreflang="fr"/>
    <?php endif;
    if( !empty( get_field('spain', get_the_ID() ) ) ) : ?>
        <link rel="alternate" href="<?php echo esc_url( get_field('spain', get_the_ID() ) ); ?>" hreflang="es" />
    <?php endif;
    if( !empty( get_field('italy', get_the_ID() ) ) ) : ?>
        <link rel="alternate" href="<?php echo esc_url( get_field('italy', get_the_ID() ) ); ?>" hreflang="it" />
    <?php endif;

    $output = ob_get_contents();
    ob_end_clean();

    return $output;
}

EDIT: line 121 is if( !empty( get_field('australia', get_the_ID() ) ) ) : ?>

I don’t fully understand what this code is doing however I believe it is mostly related to multilingual SEO support.

As I didn’t write the code or the original website, I was hoping to get some support on how to either patch the code so that it works or find alternative code to create the same job without causing issues.

I have commented out the code for the time being to allow the site to run. I was just hoping that someone might know the answer to this.

Any help would be appreciated

Answer

The ob construction is needlessly complicated.. Try replacing it with this.

function bs_get_hreflang_tags() {
    $output= '';
    if( get_field('australia', get_the_ID() ) ) :
        $output = '<link rel="alternate" href="'.esc_url( get_field('australia', get_the_ID() ) ) . '" hreflang="en-au" />';
    elseif( get_field('france', get_the_ID() ) ) :
        $output = '<link rel="alternate" href="'.esc_url( get_field('france', get_the_ID() ) ) . '" hreflang="fr" />';
    elseif( get_field('spain', get_the_ID() ) ) :
        $output = '<link rel="alternate" href="'.esc_url( get_field('spain', get_the_ID() ) ) . '" hreflang="es" />';
    elseif( get_field('italy', get_the_ID() ) ) :
        $output = '<link rel="alternate" href="'.esc_url( get_field('italy', get_the_ID() ) ) . '" hreflang="it" />';
    endif;

    return $output;
}

Advertisement

Answer