[Resolved] Remove automatic excerpts from single posts only

[George]

I am using a dynamic excerpt headline in my author meta template element. I want to remove automatic excerpts from single posts but keep excerpts with custom excerpt content. I am using this code:

remove_filter('get_the_excerpt','wp_trim_excerpt');

But it removes automatic excerpts from all category archives as well which I need. This code here doesn’t do anything.

if ( is_single() && 'post' == get_post_type() ) {
    remove_filter('get_the_excerpt','wp_trim_excerpt');	
}

I’ve also tried this code:

add_filter( 'excerpt_length','lh_custom_category_excerpt_length', 1000 );
function lh_custom_category_excerpt_length( $length ) 
{
    if ( is_single() && 'post' == get_post_type() ) {
        return 0;
    } 
    return $length;
}

but it leaves three dots ... in place of the automatic excerpt.

[David]

Hi George,

try this:

1. Select the headline block that is displaying the Excerpt, and in Advanced > Addtional CSS Class(es) add a custom class eg. single-post-excerpt

2. Then add this PHP Snippet

add_filter( 'render_block', function( $block_content, $block ) {
    
    if ( !is_admin() 
        && is_single()
        && ! has_excerpt()
        && ! empty( $block['attrs']['className'] ) 
        && strpos( $block['attrs']['className'], 'single-post-excerpt' ) !== false
    ) {
        $block_content = null;
    }

    return $block_content;

}, 10, 2 );

It uses the has_excerpt() function, to determine if the post has a custom excerpt, if it does not (!) then it strips the block content for the headline with the single-post-excerpt class.

[George]

Ah, I see what you did. Perfect, it works, thanks!

[David]

Glad to be of help 🙂

[George]

I will also leave this here in case it might seem useful to users in the future. I was made aware that possibly the code runs too early, i.e. before WordPress determined what the queried object is, i.e. whether it’s for a single post, a category archive, a search results page, etc.

Putting the code inside a function which is hooked on wp also solves the issue:

add_action( 'wp', function () {
    if ( is_single() && 'post' == get_post_type() ) {
        remove_filter( 'get_the_excerpt', 'wp_trim_excerpt' );
    }
} );

Thanks again for the solution, David.

[David]

Awesome – thanks for sharing that George!

[Author]

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