Using WordPress ‘esc_attr__()’ PHP function

The esc_attr__() function in WordPress PHP retrieves the translation of a text and makes it safe to use within an attribute. If there is no translation available or the text domain isn’t loaded, the original text will be returned.

Table of contents

Usage

Here’s a general usage example:

$translated_text = esc_attr__( 'Hello World', 'my-text-domain' );
echo '<div title="' . $translated_text . '">Welcome to our site</div>';

In this example, ‘Hello World’ is the text to be translated, and ‘my-text-domain’ is the unique identifier for retrieving translated strings.

Parameters

$text (string, required): The text to be translated.
$domain (string, optional): The text domain, which is a unique identifier for retrieving translated strings. The default value is ‘default’.

More information

See WordPress Developer Resources: esc_attr__

This function is a part of WordPress core and is not deprecated as of the latest update. You can find its source code in the wp-includes/l10n.php file in the WordPress codebase.

Examples

Basic Usage

This is a simple usage of esc_attr__(). Here we are translating a simple greeting ‘Hello’ using a text domain named ‘my-text-domain’.

$translated_greeting = esc_attr__( 'Hello', 'my-text-domain' );
echo '<div title="' . $translated_greeting . '">Welcome to our site</div>';

Using Default Text Domain

In this example, we don’t provide a text domain, so the default ‘default’ is used.

$translated_text = esc_attr__( 'Good Morning' );
echo '<div title="' . $translated_text . '">Have a great day</div>';

Using Different Text Domains

Here we use two different text domains for two different texts.

$hello = esc_attr__( 'Hello', 'domain1' );
$world = esc_attr__( 'World', 'domain2' );
echo '<div title="' . $hello . ' ' . $world . '">Hello, World!</div>';

Using Non-Existent Text Domain

If a non-existent text domain is used, the original text is returned.

$translated_text = esc_attr__( 'Hello World', 'non-existent-domain' );
echo '<div title="' . $translated_text . '">Welcome to our site</div>';

Using Translated Text in Button Attribute

This example shows how to use translated text as a button attribute.

$button_text = esc_attr__( 'Click me', 'my-text-domain' );
echo '<button title="' . $button_text . '">Press Here</button>';