template-tags.php in WordPress Child Theme

2018-02-18


Style.css and functions.php files are normally modified in WordPress child theme, we can find lots of example about how to do on them. However, when we had a chance to modify template-tags.php in child theme, we spent some time to find solution.

template-tags.php like functions.php, there are some functions in the file. We added a function using common way to replace the same function in parent theme:

if ( ! function_exists('pacify_posted_on') )
{
 
    function pacify_posted_on() {
      ….
      …
     }
}

However, the child function did not work.We thought the problem came from our code, but it was not actually.

Finally, we found that if we would have to use template-tags.php in child theme, we should give a right folder direction in functions.php file. So for our case, we put the following line at first line in our child functions.php file:

<?php require get_stylesheet_directory() . '/inc/template-tags.php';  ?>

Then our child template-tags.php worked.

Please note:

get_stylesheet_directory() points to your child theme’s directory (not the parent theme’s directory);

get_template_directory() points to the parent theme directory.

Please read WordPress development document here.