is_active_sidebar()WP 2.8.0

Whether a sidebar is in use.

For more information on this and similar theme functions, check out the Conditional Tags article in the Theme Developer Handbook.

Hooks from the function

Return

true|false. True if the sidebar has widgets, false otherwise.

Usage

is_active_sidebar( $index );
$index(string|int) (required)
Sidebar name, id or number to check.

Examples

0

#1 Determine if the widget is active

Display different text, depending on whether the widget is active or not:

if ( is_active_sidebar(1) ) {
	echo 'Sidebar 1 has widgets';
}
else {
	echo 'Sidebar 1 is empty';
}
0

#2 Just not an empty widget bar

Display the 'left-sidebar' widget bar in the template only if at least one widget is added for it:

<?php if ( is_active_sidebar( 'left-sidebar' ) ){ ?>
	<ul id="sidebar">
		<?php dynamic_sidebar( 'left-sidebar' ); ?>
	</ul>
<?php } ?>

Changelog

Since 2.8.0 Introduced.

is_active_sidebar() code WP 6.4.3

function is_active_sidebar( $index ) {
	$index             = ( is_int( $index ) ) ? "sidebar-$index" : sanitize_title( $index );
	$sidebars_widgets  = wp_get_sidebars_widgets();
	$is_active_sidebar = ! empty( $sidebars_widgets[ $index ] );

	/**
	 * Filters whether a dynamic sidebar is considered "active".
	 *
	 * @since 3.9.0
	 *
	 * @param bool       $is_active_sidebar Whether or not the sidebar should be considered "active".
	 *                                      In other words, whether the sidebar contains any widgets.
	 * @param int|string $index             Index, name, or ID of the dynamic sidebar.
	 */
	return apply_filters( 'is_active_sidebar', $is_active_sidebar, $index );
}