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WP Texturize Inline Quote Fix

Stopgap mu-plugin for WordPress core Trac #18549 — fixes quotes/apostrophes wptexturize() curls the wrong way after a closing inline tag.

by Dan Knauss · github.com/dknauss/wp-texturize-inline-quote-fix · website

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Install

Download source zip No release zip yet

This is the repository archive. It installs, but the folder name will carry the branch suffix and updates will not flow.

Install straight from GitHub with WP-CLI:

wp plugin install https://github.com/dknauss/wp-texturize-inline-quote-fix/archive/refs/heads/main.zip
No built-in updater. New versions won't appear under Dashboard → Updates. Install new releases yourself, or let Git Updater track the repository.
Readme github.com/dknauss/wp-texturize-inline-quote-fix ↗

A small stopgap plugin that corrects quotes and apostrophes that WordPress's wptexturize() curls the wrong way when they sit immediately after a closing inline HTML tag.

This is a workaround, not the fix. The real fix belongs in WordPress core and is proposed upstream. Remove this plugin once that lands.

Two builds — pick one

This repo ships two plugins that fix the same bug differently. Use one, not both.

  • wp-texturize-inline-quote-fix.php (default, lightweight) — post-processes already-texturized output, flipping the mis-curled quote after an inline tag. Tiny, drift-free, and rides on top of whatever core does. A couple of edge cases differ slightly from the core patch.
  • wp-texturize-inline-quote-fix-faithful.php (demonstration / dogfood) — replaces wptexturize() with a forked copy carrying the comprehensive #18549 patch, so output matches PR #12249 byte-for-byte, including those edge cases. It forks the whole function, so it tracks a specific WordPress version (currently 7.0) — re-sync if core changes wptexturize().

Most sites want the lightweight post-process build. The faithful build is for dogfooding the exact patch on a live site, or demonstrating it for the ticket.

What it fixes

wptexturize() loses word context across an inline tag boundary, so a straight quote right after a closing inline tag is curled as an opening quote:

Input Without this plugin With this plugin
<strong>He</strong>'s here. …</strong>&#8216;s (opening — wrong) …</strong>&#8217;s (apostrophe)
The word is '<a>quoted</a>' trailing &#8216; (opening — wrong) trailing &#8217; (closing)

A space before the quote keeps normal opening-quote behaviour (<strong>He</strong> 'go' stays &#8216;go&#8217;), so quotations are untouched.

Install

It is designed as a must-use plugin. Symlink or copy the file into wp-content/mu-plugins/:

ln -s /path/to/wp-texturize-inline-quote-fix/wp-texturize-inline-quote-fix.php \
      wp-content/mu-plugins/wp-texturize-inline-quote-fix.php

It also works as a regular plugin — drop the folder in wp-content/plugins/ and activate it.

How it works

It post-processes already-texturized output (the_content, the_title, the_excerpt, comment_text, term_description, widget_text) at priority 12, flipping an opening quote that immediately follows a closing inline tag to a closing quote/apostrophe. It mirrors the bounded core patch rather than the old 4.7-era replacement engine.

Scope and limits

  • Only the inline elements a, abbr, b, bdi, bdo, cite, data, del, dfn, em, i, ins, label, mark, q, s, samp, small, span, strong, sub, sup, time, u, var.
  • Excludes kbd (a core no-texturize tag) and deprecated acronym.
  • Excludes ] from the trailing-context match to preserve core's "crazy" shortcode texturize fixture.
  • Out of scope: quote-inside-quote behaviour (Trac #29882).

Because it works on rendered output, it cannot fix content that never passes through these filters. The core patch (above) is the complete, in-engine fix.

The faithful build

wp-texturize-inline-quote-fix-faithful.php re-points every filter that core registered wptexturize on to a forked dk_wptexturize() — WordPress 7.0's wptexturize() with the comprehensive #18549 patch applied. It reuses core's _wptexturize_pushpop_element() and wptexturize_primes(); only the function body and the two new context helpers are forked.

Parity is verified against core on the same install: the #18549 fixtures produce the corrected output, and a corpus of ordinary text (dashes, primes, quotes, shortcodes, no-texturize tags) is byte-identical to core's wptexturize() — the fork changes nothing but the inline-tag quote decision.

Because it forks the whole function it must track core: re-sync the body if core changes wptexturize(), and remove the plugin once #18549 lands. A few direct wptexturize() calls in core (not via filters) are unaffected.

License

GPL-2.0-or-later. See LICENSE.