wppaste
WordPress

add_contextual_help( string $screen, string $help )

Since
2.7.0
Source
wp-admin/includes/deprecated.php:997
Add contextual help text for a page.

Description

Creates an 'Overview' help tab.

Compatibility

Deprecated in WordPress 3.3.0. Use WP_Screen::add_help_tab()

WordPress
since 2.7.0
PHP
7.4–8.6-dev
  • 6.7.7
  • 6.8.8
  • 6.9.7
  • 7.0.4
  • 7.1.0

Present in every tracked release (6.7.7 to 7.1.0), and compiles on PHP 7.4 through 8.6-dev.

Parameters

$screenstring
The handle for the screen to add help to. This is usually the hook name returned by the add_*_page() functions.
$helpstring
The content of an 'Overview' help tab.

Performance profile

How much work a call to add_contextual_help() does, and what it touches: the algorithmic scaling, the Zend instruction count per call across PHP versions, the hooks it hands control to, and the core code that calls it. Measured from the compiled opcodes, not a stopwatch, so every number is identical on any machine running the same PHP version, and every function in core is ranked by cost.

Cost class
Trivial

Touches nothing outside its own arguments.

Scaling
Constant

No loop in the body: the same number of instructions runs whatever you pass in.

Instructions
14–18

Executed per call on PHP 8.5, depending on the branch taken. The body compiles to 18.

Plugin surface
None

Nothing here hands control to plugin code.

Called by
1

1 place in core call this, so the cost is paid more often than your own code shows.

What it touches

  • hookthird-party callbacksdo_action()one call below add_contextual_help()

Further down the call graph this can also reach query, option, cache, serialize and transient. Those are the worst case, several calls deep and usually down an error path, not what a normal call pays.

What one call costs · 2 distinct outcomes

One number would be a lie: the work depends on which branch runs. These are every distinct cost add_contextual_help() can have, taken from its control-flow graph on PHP 8.5.

WhenInstructionsCalls it makes
!is_string($screen)14_deprecated_function(), ::WP_Screen()
is_string($screen)18_deprecated_function(), convert_to_screen(), ::WP_Screen()

Across PHP versions

Compiles the same on PHP 7.4, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5 and 8.6-dev: 18 instructions, 14–18 executed per call, 1 branch. The work does not change between versions.

An instruction is not a fixed amount of time, so a matching count is not necessarily the same speed; what it rules out is a difference in the work itself.

Uses · 3

Used by · 1

Source code

View on Trac View on GitHub 

function add_contextual_help( $screen, $help ) {	_deprecated_function( __FUNCTION__, '3.3.0', 'get_current_screen()->add_help_tab()' ); 	if ( is_string( $screen ) )		$screen = convert_to_screen( $screen ); 	WP_Screen::add_old_compat_help( $screen, $help );}

Changelog

Introduced in 2.7.0. Unchanged from 6.7.7 through 7.1.0.

  1. 6.7.7
  2. 6.8.8
  3. 6.9.7
  4. 7.0.4
  5. 7.1.0

Signature, return type and hooks compared across 5 parsed releases.

3.3.0
Deprecated. Use WP_Screen::add_help_tab()from the docblock
2.7.0
Introduced.from the docblock

About this page

Parsed data
Generated from the wordpress-develop 6.8.8 tag, from src/wp-admin/includes/deprecated.php, and regenerated for each WordPress release so it tracks the code rather than a snapshot of it.
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