Resolving WordPress String Offset Warning in PHP

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1

I’m getting a weird error in my WordPress site. It’s something about an illegal string offset. Here’s what it says:

Warning: Illegal string offset 'alt' in custom_functions.php
Warning: Illegal string offset 'title' in custom_functions.php

This is happening in my theme’s custom functions file. I think it’s related to how the theme handles featured images. Here’s a bit of the code that might be causing it:

function get_featured_image($post_id, $size = 'thumbnail') {
    if (has_post_thumbnail($post_id)) {
        $image_data = array();
        $image_data['url'] = get_the_post_thumbnail_url($post_id, $size);
        $image_data['alt'] = get_post_meta(get_post_thumbnail_id($post_id), '_wp_attachment_image_alt', true);
        $image_data['title'] = get_the_title(get_post_thumbnail_id($post_id));
        return $image_data;
    }
    return false;
}

I’m not super techy so I’m not sure what’s wrong. Can someone help me figure out how to fix this? Thanks!

2

I’ve encountered similar issues with string offset warnings in WordPress themes before. From what I can see in your code, the problem likely occurs when a post doesn’t have a featured image set.

The function returns false if there’s no thumbnail, but the code that calls this function might not be checking for that false return value. As a result, it’s trying to access ‘alt’ and ‘title’ keys on a non-array value.

To fix this, you could modify the function to always return an array, even when there’s no featured image. Something like this:

function get_featured_image($post_id, $size = 'thumbnail') {
    $image_data = array('url' => '', 'alt' => '', 'title' => '');
    if (has_post_thumbnail($post_id)) {
        $image_data['url'] = get_the_post_thumbnail_url($post_id, $size);
        $image_data['alt'] = get_post_meta(get_post_thumbnail_id($post_id), '_wp_attachment_image_alt', true);
        $image_data['title'] = get_the_title(get_post_thumbnail_id($post_id));
    }
    return $image_data;
}

This should resolve the warnings you’re seeing. Remember to back up your files before making any changes, just in case.

3

hey charlottew, those errors suck! i had similar probs before. try checking if the image exists before accessing its properties. like this:

if (is_array($image_data) && isset($image_data['alt'])) {
    // use $image_data['alt']
}

this should stop the warnings. good luck!