Help with Searchform.php

First, you need to use the proper template include tag. For including the Search Form, you should use:

<?php get_search_form(); ?>

Second, if you don’t need to modify the default Search Form markup, then you don’t need to include “searchform.php”, as the get_search_form() template tag will use the default markup if no “searchform.php” is included in the Theme.

Third: the specific problem you’re having appears to be an issue with your local test environment. Note the specified filepath:

C:\xampp\htdocs\wordpress/wp-content/themes/Xpressphp

See what’s wrong? Your slashes change direction.

Nevertheless: simply get rid of “searchform.php”, call the search form using get_search_form(), and you should be fine.

“Third: the specific problem you’re having appears to be an issue with your local test environment. Note the specified filepath:”

What could be the cause of this problem? How did it occur? How to solve it now?

Thanks for get_search_form()

Hi,

i tried using <?php get_search_form(); ?> and instead of showing my search bar, it just displayed the code of the file.

Code of my searchform.php file:

<form method="get" id="searchform" action="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>/">
<div><input type="text" value="<?php if(is_search() ) { the_search_query(); } else { echo 'Search...'; } 

?>" name="s" id="s" onfocus="if(this.value=='Search...')this.value='<?php the_search_query(); ?>'" 

onblur="if(this.value=='')this.value='Search...'" />
<input type="submit" id="searchsubmit" value="Search" />
</div>
</form>

I called this in my header file. Instead of search bar, it showed this on my theme:

??<?form method="get" id="searchform" action="<??php bloginfo('url'); ?>/"> <?div><?input type="text" value="<??php if(is_search() ) { the_search_query(); } else { echo 'Search...'; } ?>" name="s" id="s" onfocus="if(this.value=='Search...')this.value='<??php the_search_query(); ?>'" onblur="if(this.value=='')this.value='Search...'" /> <?input type="submit" id="searchsubmit" value="Search" /> <?/div> <?/form>

What’s happening? What are these strange question marks that appear?

I then removed the searchform.php file from my directory and refreshed the page and voila! The search bar with a search button next to it appeared. But the problem is i don’t like the default search form. I want to style my own form and have other effects. What and how to do?

I also have a modified search.php file.

What to do now?

Do you have some improperly closed PHP tags somewhere in your template files?

EDIT: also, do you have some non-printable characters in your template files?

(Also: the “search.php” template file displays the results of a search query; it should have no bearing on your issue.)

As far as i’m concerned, i have no ‘improperly closed PHP tags’and no ‘non-printable characters’ anywhere in my template files.

But still, just for reassurance, how do i check for the above mentioned errors? Obviously i can’t go through so much of codes in all my files manually, so is there a quick way to find out and check for them?

P.S. If there were improperly closed tags or something, then my theme wouldn’t work, right? But its working. Its only when i include my search form that it shows an error.

One more thing…

All the posts listed in my theme are working perfectly, apart from one post: https://localhost/wordpress/2008/09/05/readability-test/

It was working properly before but now, when i open that page, only the header file loads, breadcrumb is broken, and no sidebar and footer. It shows the following error:

Catchable fatal error: Object of class WP_Error could not be converted to string in C:\xampp\htdocs\wordpress\wp-content\themes\Xpress\functions.php on line 385

Line 385 on my functions.php is this:

echo get_category_parents($cat, TRUE, ' ' . $delimiter . ' ');

This line 385 is the code for breadcrumbs. What could be the error?

Is this breadcrumb issue on only 1 particular post problem in any way related to my search form problem?

Please help!
Thanks!