wppaste
WordPress

url_shorten( string $url, int $length = 35 ): string

Since
1.2.0, 4.4.0
Source
wp-includes/formatting.php:6192
Shortens a URL, to be used as link text.

Compatibility

WordPress
since 4.4.0
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

$urlstring
URL to shorten.
$lengthintoptional
Maximum length of the shortened URL. Default 35 characters.Default: 35

Return value

string
Shortened URL.

Performance profile

How much work a call to url_shorten() 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
12–17

Executed per call on PHP 8.5, depending on the branch taken. The body compiles to 17.

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 one call costs · 1 distinct outcome

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

WhenInstructionsCalls it makes
always12–17untrailingslashit()

Across PHP versions

PHPCompiledExecutedBranchesNotes
8.6-dev1712–171
8.51712–171
8.41712–1717 fewer instructions than PHP 8.3
8.32416–241
8.22416–241
8.12416–241
7.42416–241

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 · 1

Used by · 1

Source code

function url_shorten( $url, $length = 35 ) {	$stripped  = str_replace( array( 'https://', 'http://', 'www.' ), '', $url );	$short_url = untrailingslashit( $stripped ); 	if ( strlen( $short_url ) > $length ) {		$short_url = substr( $short_url, 0, $length - 3 ) . '…';	}	return $short_url;}

Changelog

Introduced in 1.2.0. 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.

4.4.0
Moved to wp-includes/formatting.php from wp-admin/includes/misc.php and added $length param.from the docblock
1.2.0
Introduced.from the docblock

About this page

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