Getting PHP Working in Widgets

By default any PHP code won’t execute in WordPress widgets or sidebars, you can probably get by with a plugin but you can also add a function in your themes function.php file to allow PHP to run, what you need to declare is a custom function and filter.

//Allow PHP to run in Widgets
add_filter('widget_text','execute_php_widgets',10);

function execute_php_widgets($html){
   if(strpos($html,"<"."?php")!==false){
   ob_start();
   eval("?".">".$html);
   $html=ob_get_contents();
   ob_end_clean();
   }
return $html;
}

If you add the above in your theme or child theme – PHP is now enabled and will work in widget areas.

Getting ShortCode Working in Widgets

You also can’t get shortcode to work in widget areas by default, however a filter can be added to the functions.php file to make that work

// Use shortcodes in text widgets.
add_filter('widget_text', 'do_shortcode');

 

Getting ShortCode Working in PHP Templates

You can get shortcode working in WordPress php templates like so:

// Use shortcode in a native PHP file 
<?php echo do_shortcode('http:myvideo.com'); ?>

If the code is to be inserted inbetween HTML make sure you keep the PHP opening and closing tags as above.