WordPress plugins and permalinks, how to use pretty links in your plugin

<br />
&lt;?php<br />
/*<br />
Plugin Name: My Permalink Demo<br />
Plugin URI: https://soderlind.no/archives/2012/11/01/wordpress-plugins-and-permalinks-how-to-use-pretty-links-in-your-plugin/<br />
Description: Demo plugin to show how to implement your custom permalink for your plugin. To test, add the [mypermalink] or [mypermalink val="ipsum"] shortcode to a page or post.<br />
Version: 1.0.1<br />
Author: Per Soderlind<br />
Author URI: https://soderlind.no/<br />
*/</p>
<p>if (!class_exists('my_permalink')) {<br />
class my_permalink {</p>
<p>function __construct(){<br />
// demo shortcode<br />
add_shortcode('mypermalink', array(&amp;$this,'my_permalink_demo_shortcode'));</p>
<p>// permalink hooks:<br />
add_filter('generate_rewrite_rules', array(&amp;$this,'my_permalink_rewrite_rule'));<br />
add_filter('query_vars', array(&amp;$this,'my_permalink_query_vars'));<br />
add_filter('admin_init', array(&amp;$this, 'my_permalink_flush_rewrite_rules'));<br />
add_action("parse_request", array(&amp;$this,"my_permalink_parse_request"));<br />
}</p>
<p>/**************************************************************************<br />
* Demo shortcode<br />
* A simple shortcode used to demonstrate the plugin.<br />
*<br />
* @see https://codex.wordpress.org/Shortcode_API<br />
* @param array $atts shortcode parameters<br />
* @return string URL to demonstrate custom permalink<br />
**************************************************************************/<br />
function my_permalink_demo_shortcode($atts) {<br />
extract(shortcode_atts(array(<br />
// default values<br />
'val' =&gt; 'lorem'<br />
), $atts));<br />
return sprintf('&lt;a href="%s"&gt;My permalink&lt;/a&gt;',$this-&gt;my_permalink_url($val));<br />
}</p>
<p>/**************************************************************************<br />
* Create your URL<br />
* If the blog has a permalink structure, a permalink is returned. Otherwise<br />
* a standard URL with param=val.<br />
*<br />
* @param sting $val Parameter to custom url<br />
* @return string URL<br />
**************************************************************************/<br />
function my_permalink_url($val) {<br />
if ( get_option('permalink_structure')) { // check if the blog has a permalink structure<br />
return sprintf("%s/my-permalink/%s",home_url(),$val);<br />
} else {<br />
return sprintf("%s/index.php?my_permalink_variable_01=%s",home_url(),$val);<br />
}<br />
}</p>
<p>/**************************************************************************<br />
* Add your rewrite rule.<br />
* The rewrite rules array is an associative array with permalink URLs as regular<br />
* expressions (regex) keys, and the corresponding non-permalink-style URLs as values<br />
* For the rule to take effect, flush the rewrite cache,<br />
* either by re-saving permalinks in Settings-&gt;Permalinks,<br />
* or running the my_permalink_flush_rewrite_rules() method below.<br />
*<br />
* @see https://codex.wordpress.org/Custom_Queries#Permalinks_for_Custom_Archives<br />
* @param object $wp_rewrite<br />
* @return array New permalink structure<br />
**************************************************************************/<br />
function my_permalink_rewrite_rule( $wp_rewrite ) {<br />
$new_rules = array(<br />
'my-permalink/(.*)$' =&gt; sprintf("index.php?my_permalink_variable_01=%s",$wp_rewrite-&gt;preg_index(1))<br />
/*<br />
// a more complex permalink:<br />
'my-permalink/([^/]+)/([^.]+).html$' =&gt; sprintf("index.php?my_permalink_variable_01=%s&amp;my_permalink_variable_02=%s",$wp_rewrite-&gt;preg_index(1),$wp_rewrite-&gt;preg_index(2))<br />
*/<br />
);</p>
<p>$wp_rewrite-&gt;rules = $new_rules + $wp_rewrite-&gt;rules;<br />
return $wp_rewrite-&gt;rules;<br />
}</p>
<p>/**************************************************************************<br />
* Add your custom query variables.<br />
* To make sure that our parameter value(s) gets saved,when WordPress parse the URL,<br />
* we have to add our variable(s) to the list of query variables WordPress<br />
* understands (query_vars filter)<br />
*<br />
* @see https://codex.wordpress.org/Custom_Queries<br />
* @param array $query_vars<br />
* @return array $query_vars with custom query variables<br />
**************************************************************************/<br />
function my_permalink_query_vars( $query_vars ) {<br />
$query_vars[] = 'my_permalink_variable_01';<br />
/*<br />
// need more variables?:<br />
$query_vars[] = 'my_permalink_variable_02';<br />
$query_vars[] = 'my_permalink_variable_03';<br />
*/<br />
return $query_vars;<br />
}</p>
<p>/**************************************************************************<br />
* Parses a URL into a query specification<br />
* This is where you should add your code.<br />
*<br />
* @see https://codex.wordpress.org/Query_Overview<br />
* @param array $atts shortcode parameters<br />
* @return string URL to demonstrate custom permalink<br />
**************************************************************************/<br />
function my_permalink_parse_request($wp_query) {<br />
if (isset($wp_query-&gt;query_vars['my_permalink_variable_01'])) { // same as the first custom variable in my_permalink_query_vars( $query_vars )<br />
// add your code here, code below is for this demo<br />
printf("&lt;pre&gt;%s&lt;/pre&gt;",print_r($wp_query-&gt;query_vars,true));<br />
exit(0);<br />
}<br />
}</p>
<p>/**************************************************************************<br />
* Flushes the permalink structure.<br />
* flush_rules is an extremely costly function in terms of performance, and<br />
* should only be run when changing the rule.<br />
*<br />
* @see https://codex.wordpress.org/Rewrite_API/flush_rules<br />
**************************************************************************/<br />
function my_permalink_flush_rewrite_rules() {<br />
$rules = $GLOBALS['wp_rewrite']-&gt;wp_rewrite_rules();<br />
if ( ! isset( $rules['my-permalink/(.*)$'] ) ) { // must be the same rule as in my_permalink_rewrite_rule($wp_rewrite)<br />
global $wp_rewrite;<br />
$wp_rewrite-&gt;flush_rules();<br />
}<br />
}<br />
} //End Class<br />
} //End if class exists statement</p>
<p>if (class_exists('my_permalink')) {<br />
$my_permalink_var = new my_permalink();<br />
}<br />
?&gt;<br />