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.

• Trac: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/18549
• PR: https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/pull/12249

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:

A space before the quote keeps normal opening-quote behaviour (<strong>He</strong> 'go' stays ‘go’), 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.