wppaste
WordPress

do_blocks( string $content ): string

Since
5.0.0
Source
wp-includes/blocks.php:2572
Parses dynamic blocks out of post_content and re-renders them.

Compatibility

WordPress
since 5.0.0
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

$contentstring
Post content.

Return value

string
Updated post content.

Performance profile

How much work a call to do_blocks() 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
Heavy

Reaches the database via get_post().

Scaling
Scales with input

The body loops, so the work grows with what you pass in.

Instructions
19–38

Executed per call on PHP 8.5, depending on the branch taken. The body compiles to 47.

Plugin surface
None

Nothing here hands control to plugin code.

Called by
4

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

What it touches

  • hookthird-party callbacksapply_filters()one call below do_blocks()
  • querycontent queryget_post()one call below do_blocks()

Further down the call graph this can also reach 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 · 4 distinct outcomes

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

WhenInstructionsCalls it makes
!$i && $priority === false19parse_blocks(), has_filter()
!$i && $priority !== false && !doing_filter()23parse_blocks(), has_filter(), doing_filter()
!$i && $priority !== false && doing_filter() && !has_blocks()27parse_blocks(), has_filter(), doing_filter(), has_blocks()
!$i && $priority !== false && doing_filter() && has_blocks()38parse_blocks(), has_filter(), doing_filter(), has_blocks(), remove_filter(), add_filter()

Across PHP versions

Compiles the same on PHP 7.4, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5 and 8.6-dev: 47 instructions, 19–38 executed per call, 4 branches. 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 · 7

Used by · 4

Source code

function do_blocks( $content ) {	$blocks                = parse_blocks( $content );	$top_level_block_count = count( $blocks );	$output                = ''; 	/**	 * Parsed blocks consist of a list of top-level blocks. Those top-level	 * blocks may themselves contain nested inner blocks. However, every	 * top-level block is rendered independently, meaning there are no data	 * dependencies between them.	 *	 * Ideally, therefore, the parser would only need to parse one complete	 * top-level block at a time, render it, and move on. Unfortunately, this	 * is not possible with {@see \parse_blocks()} because it must parse the	 * entire given document at once.	 *	 * While the current implementation prevents this optimization, it’s still	 * possible to reduce the peak memory use when calls to `render_block()`	 * on those top-level blocks are memory-heavy (which many of them are).	 * By setting each parsed block to `NULL` after rendering it, any memory	 * allocated during the render will be freed and reused for the next block.	 * Before making this change, that memory was retained and would lead to	 * out-of-memory crashes for certain posts that now run with this change.	 */	for ( $i = 0; $i < $top_level_block_count; $i++ ) {		$output      .= render_block( $blocks[ $i ] );		$blocks[ $i ] = null;	} 	// If there are blocks in this content, we shouldn't run wpautop() on it later.	$priority = has_filter( 'the_content', 'wpautop' );	if ( false !== $priority && doing_filter( 'the_content' ) && has_blocks( $content ) ) {		remove_filter( 'the_content', 'wpautop', $priority );		add_filter( 'the_content', '_restore_wpautop_hook', $priority + 1 );	} 	return $output;}

Changelog

Introduced in 5.0.0. 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.

About this page

Parsed data
Generated from the wordpress-develop 7.1.0 tag, from src/wp-includes/blocks.php, and regenerated for each WordPress release so it tracks the code rather than a snapshot of it.
Corrections
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