esc_url returns incorrect URL

2 comments

1. It ended up being something very easy, but something I overlooked. Since I always use <?php get_search_form(); ?> for my search forms, I naturally assume that in my section template for the search area, I was using that, but I was not.

   I built the theme custom off of another theme I built for a different website and for some reason in the form’s action="" I hardcode the url for the first site; that is why I kept getting forwarded there.

   I thought I checked the section, but must have overlooked it. After two days or so, I decided to re-check the section, thanks to the suggestions in the comments which made me re-think the problem.

   So yeah, really stupid brain fart, but it is now solved.

2. Consider the following code:

   <form role="search" method="get" action="<?php echo esc_url( home_url( '/' ) ); ?>">
   

   home_url() is a WordPress function that retrieves the home URL for the current site. When called with an optional $path argument, it returns the Home URL with the optional $path argument appended.

   Here’s the function definition (from wp-includes/link-template.php L#1959):

   function get_home_url( $blog_id = null, $path = '', $scheme = null ) {
       $orig_scheme = $scheme;
   
       if ( empty( $blog_id ) || !is_multisite() ) {
           $url = get_option( 'home' );
       } else {
           switch_to_blog( $blog_id );
           $url = get_option( 'home' );
           restore_current_blog();
       }
   
       if ( ! in_array( $scheme, array( 'http', 'https', 'relative' ) ) ) {
           if ( is_ssl() && ! is_admin() && 'wp-login.php' !== $GLOBALS['pagenow'] )
               $scheme = 'https';
           else
               $scheme = parse_url( $url, PHP_URL_SCHEME );
       }
   
       $url = set_url_scheme( $url, $scheme );
   
       if ( $path && is_string( $path ) )
           $url .= '/' . ltrim( $path, '/' );
   
       return apply_filters( 'home_url', $url, $path, $orig_scheme, $blog_id );
   }
   

   Basically, there’s nothing in this function that would return a random URL out of nowhere.

   When situations like this occur, the best thing to do is to grep your code for clues.

   Run this in a shell in the WordPress root installation directory:

   grep -nr "http://randomurl.com"
   

   This will list all the occurences of http://randomurl.com in your code-base and show the files that they appear in. If there are multiple occurrences, you can use a bit more advanced search (using command line options such as awk) to see which one’s actually causing troubles.

   Note: I know this has already been solved, but this might be useful for future visitors, so I’m posting it as an answer 🙂

Comments are closed.