Photo Directory: render the photo description as plain text - #860
Photo Directory: render the photo description as plain text#860mcliwanow wants to merge 8 commits into
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The description submitted with a photo is its alternative text, and the submit form sanitizes it as plain text on the way in. On output it was still run through the regular post content filters, so text that looks like markup was interpreted instead of displayed. Escape it before those filters run, keeping paragraphs and the visible text as submitted. Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Included review availability: Your plan provides up to 8 included reviews per hour; 7 remain after this review. 📝 WalkthroughWalkthroughPhoto content is converted to escaped plain text. Shortcode brackets and URL protocol delimiters are neutralized. Embed callbacks are no longer removed, tracked, or restored. ChangesPhoto content rendering
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The diagnosis is right and the shape of the fix is right: the description is plain text on the way in, and wp:post-content was handing it to the whole the_content stack on the way out. Escaping at PHP_INT_MIN so that do_blocks, do_shortcode and run_shortcode only ever see text is the correct layer, and [ covers both do_shortcode() at 11 and WP_Embed::run_shortcode() at 8.
I checked the surrounding claims against a real WordPress checkout. Two of the three hold. One does not.
wpautop() does not prevent auto-embedding. It creates the exact shape that triggers it.
WP_Embed::autoembed() makes two passes (class-wp-embed.php:446-451):
// Find URLs on their own line.
$content = preg_replace_callback( '|^(\s*)(https?://[^\s<>"]+)(\s*)$|im', ... );
// Find URLs in their own paragraph.
$content = preg_replace_callback( '|(<p(?: [^>]*)?>\s*)(https?://[^\s<>"]+)(\s*</p>)|i', ... );Wrapping first defeats the first pass and walks straight into the second. I ran core's wpautop() standalone over esc_html( 'https://youtu.be/abc123' ) and it returns <p>https://youtu.be/abc123</p>\n, which matches the second pattern with $2 === 'https://youtu.be/abc123'. So a description that is a single URL still reaches WP_Embed::shortcode() after this change, exactly as it does on trunk.
That the testing did not catch it is easy to explain: autoembed_callback() sets linkifunknown = false, so a URL with no oEmbed provider comes back byte-identical and the output looks untouched. A provider URL (YouTube, WordPress.tv, Twitter) does not.
It is worth fixing rather than deferring, because the consequences are not only cosmetic. On a front-end view $this->usecache is true but the cache starts empty, so WP_Embed::shortcode() falls through to wp_oembed_get(), which is an outbound HTTP request during page render, and then update_post_meta( $post_id, '_oembed_' . md5( ... ), $html ) writes to the photo post (class-wp-embed.php:307-316). A write and a remote fetch on a public GET, driven by submitted text. This is pre-existing rather than introduced here, but the PR is presented as closing it and does not.
Options, roughly in order of how much I like them:
- Unhook the embed filters for photo requests, for example
remove_filter( 'the_content', array( $GLOBALS['wp_embed'], 'autoembed' ), 8 )and the matchingrun_shortcodeat 8, guarded the same way the escape is. Explicit about what is being turned off, and no longer relies on out-guessing a regex. - Make the follow-up you describe (
wp:post-contentto a plain-text block inwporg-photos-2024) part of this change rather than optional. If the content never goes throughthe_contentfor the single view, the whole class of problem goes away, and thethe_contentfilter is left as defence for REST, feeds and excerpts. - At minimum, correct the comment.
// Wrap paragraphs now, so a URL on a line of its own is not auto-embedded.will send the next reader in the wrong direction.
The two claims that do hold:
wpautop()is idempotent over this output, so core's ownwpautopat priority 10 running a second time does not produce nested<p>. I ran it twice over the escaped forms of your test strings and got identical results, including<p>line1<br />\nline2</p>for a soft break.- The global-post check is sound for the paths named in the description.
WP_REST_Posts_Controller::prepare_item_for_response()assigns$GLOBALS['post']and callssetup_postdata()before it renderscontent.rendered(class-wp-rest-posts-controller.php:1889-1891), andwp_trim_excerpt()and the feed both run inside the loop, soget_post_type()sees the photo in all three.
Smaller notes:
- Keying on
get_post_type()with no argument keys on the global post, not on the content being filtered. Anyapply_filters( 'the_content', $something_else )that runs while a photo is the global post gets escaped too. On this site that is unlikely to bite, and the existingUploadsfilters are on a page rather than a photo, so they are unaffected. Mentioning it only so the constraint is written down somewhere. plain_text_to_html()has no caller butrender_content_as_plain_text().privateunless you have a second use in mind.- Excerpts get
strip_shortcodes()applied to the raw content bywp_trim_excerpt()before anythe_contentcallback runs, so a bracketed word still vanishes from the excerpt even after this change. Pre-existing, out of scope, but it means the excerpt and the body will not agree.
…escription WP_Embed::autoembed() also matches a URL that is alone inside a paragraph, so wrapping the escaped text first did not keep a URL-only description from being embedded, and the oEmbed lookup writes cache meta to the photo on a public request. Remove run_shortcode and autoembed for the photo and hook them back once its content has been filtered. Drop the pre-wrap and make the escaping helper private. Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Inline comments:
In `@wordpress.org/public_html/wp-content/plugins/photo-directory/inc/posts.php`:
- Line 293: Update Posts::render_content_as_plain_text() and its
remove_embed_filters/restore_embed_filters flow so WP_Embed callbacks remain
available during nested non-photo the_content processing, while still
suppressing them only for the active photo rendering invocation; preserve
correct restoration afterward. Add a regression test covering URL-only non-photo
content processed recursively through the_content and verifying embedding still
occurs.
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Encode the characters later content filters key on instead of unhooking and rehooking them. Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Inline comments:
In `@wordpress.org/public_html/wp-content/plugins/photo-directory/inc/posts.php`:
- Line 282: Update the escaping at the content handling site around $content to
use an escaping path with double encoding enabled, preserving literal entity
text such as &copy;. Add a regression test covering already-encoded entities
and verify they remain literal after rendering.
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Good catch on
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Re-reviewed. The approach holds up: PHP_INT_MIN puts the escape ahead of WP_Embed::run_shortcode/autoembed (8), do_blocks (9), wptexturize/wpautop (10) and do_shortcode (11), and neutralising [ and :// closes the shortcode and autoembed paths. I could not construct markup through esc_html's double_encode = false behaviour: existing character references are preserved and the parser renders them as text.
Three things below, none blocking.
| $content = esc_html( $content ); | ||
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| // Shortcode and URL syntax stay visible text: hide the characters shortcodes and embeds key on. | ||
| return str_replace( [ '[', '://' ], [ '[', '://' ], $content ); |
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esc_html() calls _wp_specialchars( $text, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8', false ), and with $double_encode = false an already-valid entity passes through untouched. A description submitted as the literal nine characters &amp; survives sanitize_textarea_field intact and then renders as a single &, and [gallery] renders as [gallery].
Neither is exploitable, do_shortcode matches only a literal [, but it contradicts the stated contract that the submitted text is shown verbatim. htmlspecialchars( $content, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8', true ) would be faithful.
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That's intentional. Intake goes through wp_filter_post_kses(), which stores a typed & as &, so the output has to leave existing entities alone or every ampersand ever submitted shows up as &. From the sandbox, including a real published row:
…lter docblock Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Reviewed this against the branch, and against a WordPress checkout for the parts that depend on core's own ordering. The approach holds up:
One correction to the description"Paragraphs and texturize still apply" is only half true. Smaller notes
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Thanks. Fixed the texturize line in the description, quotes stop curling because they are escaped first. |
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Re-reviewed at df1870b. Approving.
The description now states the quote-curling change, so my earlier correction is addressed.
New this round: the RSS path checks out. Posts::add_photo_to_rss_feed() runs on the_content_feed, after the_content, and reuses the escaped string twice, as 'alt' => $content on get_the_post_thumbnail() and raw inside <figcaption>. Neither leaks literal entities: esc_attr() does not double-encode, so [ and :// render as [ and :// in the alt attribute and in the caption, which is what you want.
Everything from my previous pass still holds: intake really does store plain text via sanitize_textarea_field, so this is output-side defence in depth plus a fix for the legacy rows; the PHP_INT_MIN placement lands ahead of WP_Embed::run_shortcode and autoembed (8), do_blocks (9), wptexturize and wpautop (10) and do_shortcode (11); the plugin's other the_content callbacks are gated on is_page( SUBMIT_PAGE_SLUG ) so they never cross paths with a photo; and the global-post keying holds for REST, since WP_REST_Posts_Controller::prepare_item_for_response() assigns $GLOBALS['post'] and calls setup_postdata() before applying the_content.
Caveat attached to this approval
The approval takes on the operational step in the description: photos 24724 and 28413 carry pre-sanitizer <a>/<p> markup and will render it as visible text the moment this deploys. Their descriptions need editing to plain text alongside the deploy, not after it. Worth carrying into the commit message so whoever lands it in SVN does not lose the dependency.
One thing the escaping does not cover, out of scope here
convert_smilies sits on the_content at priority 20, so it runs after the escape, and it converts text rather than markup. There is nothing for the [ and :// masking to catch:
Great shot at f/8 :) See [fig 8) here] ...
^^ ^^
Both :) and 8) are in $wpsmiliestrans, so a description reading "see fig 8)" renders an <img> in a field whose whole purpose is to be the photo's alternative text. This is pre-existing rather than a regression, but after this change it is the last the_content callback that still turns a photo description into markup, which sits a little awkwardly against the premise. A separate ticket rather than a reason to hold this one.
Still the only one of the three related PRs with no automated test, for the reason you gave: the plugin has no suite to wire into.
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Why
The description submitted with a photo is its alternative text. The submit form says "No HTML" and caps it at 350 characters, and since 9fc0f0a
Uploads::sanitize_submitted_description()stores it as plain text. On output it was still treated as post content, so text that looks like markup was interpreted instead of displayed.What changed
Posts::render_content_as_plain_text()runs first onthe_contentfor the photo post type and escapes the description, so every later callback sees text. Paragraphs still apply. Texturize still runs, but quotes and apostrophes no longer curl since they are already escaped when it gets there. Other post types are untouched.Testing
Verified on wp-env against WordPress master with the plugin active: a description round-trips through intake unchanged, renders as text on the single photo page (through the template over HTTP, through
apply_filters( 'the_content' ), and in the excerpt), and a page with[gallery]still expands it.Of the existing photos, two published ones (24724, 28413) carry old
<a>/<p>markup from before the intake sanitizer and will show it as text. Their descriptions get edited to plain text alongside the deploy.🤖 Generated with Claude Code