Is_front_page inside header.php is always returning true

Question

I have a page that I designated as my front page using the reading portion of settings in the dashboard. When I place a script inside of an if statement using is_front_page in functions.php, it only runs on that designated front-page, and not the others (indicating the page has been designated correctly).

However, I have an if statement in my header.php file that also uses is_front_page, and that seems to be triggering on all my pages (including the ones that I have not designated as the front page).

What is going on? Can you not run is_front_page from within header.php and have that code only apply to the front-page header? Am I missing something?

This is the code that I have placed in my header.php file that is returning true on all pages

<?php echo ( is_front_page ) ? 'frontPageLogo' : NULL; ?>

(I believe it is returning true on all pages because it always echoes 'frontPageLogo')

Answer 1

Yes it should work in the header file just like normal. Try using a standard IF statement instead of shorthand:

if( is_front_page() ){
    echo 'Front page!';
}

You must have it configured in the settings to use:

A static page (select below) instead of Your latest posts

If you want is_front_page() to only return TRUE when viewing the page you select from the dropdown for Front Page (which it sounds like you do)

You can then use is_home() if a static page is set for the front page of the site, this function will return true only on the page you set as the “Posts page”.

https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/is_home/

Whether is_home() or is_front_page() return true or false depends on the values of certain option values:

• get_option( 'show_on_front' ): returns either 'posts' or 'page'
• get_option( 'page_on_front' ): returns the ID of the static page assigned to the front page
• get_option( 'page_for_posts' ): returns the ID of the static page assigned to the blog posts index (posts page)

When using these query conditionals:

• If 'posts' == get_option( 'show_on_front' ):
  • On the site front page:
    • is_front_page() will return true
    • is_home() will return true
  • If assigned, WordPress ignores the pages assigned to display the site front page or the blog posts index
• If 'page' == get_option( 'show_on_front' ):
  • On the page assigned to display the site front page:
    • is_front_page() will return true
    • is_home() will return false
  • On the page assigned to display the blog posts index:
    • is_front_page() will return false
    • is_home() will return true

Answer 2

Just for the record, your original statement would have worked if you had called a function by including parens instead of using what looked like a non-existent constant to the PHP interpreter. The constant is_front_page was evaluated as the string "is_front_page" and since "is_front_page" is not == false, it evaluated as true and "frontPageLogo" was always echoed. Get it?

So instead of:

<?php echo ( is_front_page ) ?  'frontPageLogo' : NULL; ?>

You wanted:

   <?php echo ( is_front_page() ) ?  'frontPageLogo' : NULL; ?>