get_file_description( string $file ): string
- Since
- 1.5.0
- Source
wp-admin/includes/file.php:80
Compatibility
- WordPress
- since 1.5.0
- 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
$filestring- Filesystem path or filename.
Return value
string- Description of file from $wp_file_descriptions or basename of $file if description doesn't exist.
Appends 'Page Template' to basename of $file if the file is a page template.
Performance profile
How much work a call to get_file_description() does, and what it touches: the algorithmic scaling, the Zend instruction count per call across PHP versions, the hooks it hands control to, and the core code that calls it. Measured from the compiled opcodes, not a stopwatch, so every number is identical on any machine running the same PHP version, and every function in core is ranked by cost.
- Cost class
- Heavy
- Scaling
- Constant
- Instructions
- 21–47
- Plugin surface
- None
- Called by
- 1
Reads or writes the filesystem via file_exists().
No loop in the body: the same number of instructions runs whatever you pass in.
Executed per call on PHP 8.5, depending on the branch taken. The body compiles to 57.
Nothing here hands control to plugin code.
1 place in core call this, so the cost is paid more often than your own code shows.
What it touches
- filesystemfilesystem access
file_exists()called directly
Further down the call graph this can also reach hook, query, option, cache, serialize and transient. Those are the worst case, several calls deep and usually down an error path, not what a normal call pays.
What one call costs · 5 distinct outcomes
One number would be a lie: the work depends on which branch runs. These are every distinct cost get_file_description() can have, taken from its control-flow graph on PHP 8.5.
| When | Instructions | Calls it makes |
|---|---|---|
isset($wp_file_descriptions) && $dirname === "." | 21 | pathinfo(), basename(), basename() |
!file_exists() | 23–25 | pathinfo(), basename(), file_exists(), basename() |
file_exists() && !is_file() | 27–29 | pathinfo(), basename(), file_exists(), is_file(), basename() |
file_exists() && is_file() && !preg_match() | 37–39 | pathinfo(), basename(), file_exists(), is_file(), file(), preg_match(), basename() |
file_exists() && is_file() && preg_match() | 45–47 | pathinfo(), basename(), file_exists(), is_file(), file(), preg_match(), __(), _cleanup_header_comment(), sprintf() |
Across PHP versions
| PHP | Compiled | Executed | Branches | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8.6-dev | 57 | 21–47 | 5 | |
| 8.5 | 57 | 21–47 | 5 | |
| 8.4 | 57 | 21–47 | 5 | 6 fewer instructions than PHP 8.3 |
| 8.3 | 63 | 21–51 | 5 | |
| 8.2 | 63 | 21–51 | 5 | |
| 8.1 | 63 | 21–51 | 5 | |
| 7.4 | 63 | 21–51 | 5 |
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 · 2
- __()Retrieves the translation of $text.
- _cleanup_header_comment()Strips close comment and close php tags from file headers used by WP.
Used by · 1
- wp_print_theme_file_tree()Outputs the formatted file list for the theme file editor.
Source code
function get_file_description( $file ) { global $wp_file_descriptions, $allowed_files; $dirname = pathinfo( $file, PATHINFO_DIRNAME ); $file_path = $allowed_files[ $file ]; if ( isset( $wp_file_descriptions[ basename( $file ) ] ) && '.' === $dirname ) { return $wp_file_descriptions[ basename( $file ) ]; } elseif ( file_exists( $file_path ) && is_file( $file_path ) ) { $template_data = implode( '', file( $file_path ) ); if ( preg_match( '|Template Name:(.*)$|mi', $template_data, $name ) ) { /* translators: %s: Template name. */ return sprintf( __( '%s Page Template' ), _cleanup_header_comment( $name[1] ) ); } } return trim( basename( $file ) );}Changelog
Introduced in 1.5.0. Unchanged from 6.7.7 through 7.1.0.
Signature, return type and hooks compared across 5 parsed releases.
About this page
- Parsed data
- Generated from the wordpress-develop 6.9.7 tag, from
src/wp-admin/includes/file.php, and regenerated for each WordPress release so it tracks the code rather than a snapshot of it. - Corrections
- Something wrong on this page? Report it and it gets fixed in the next regeneration.