wrapping menu items with span in Drupal 6

Question

I need <span> tags around strings on my menu items. Trying to use this answer but it does not work for me. I probably just need some guidance in terms of naming things (just started on Drupal).

My theme folder name is sub_website, it is inheriting from theme called website (set by base theme = website in sub_website/sub_website.info). The menu in question is named 'Primary menu', it is selected as "source for the primary links" in the settings, and it is accessible via /admin/build/menu-customize/primary-links URI.

I tried adding the following into the sub-theme's template.php:

function sub_website_links__system_primary_links_menu($variables) {
  foreach ($variables['links'] as $link) {
    $output .= l('<span>'. check_plain($link['title']) .'</span>', $link['href'], $link);
  }
  return $output;
}

What am I doing wrong? Am I not clearing the cache properly? Did I not name the function correctly? Is there no such hook in Drupal 6? Documentation is very fragmented and is further complicated by two major versions existing side by side.

Answer 1

The answer that you found is for Drupal 7 not for Drupal 6.

In Drupal 6 you can't override theme_links() for a specific target.

You need to override theme_links() function itself to add span tag as the following code:

function sub_website_links($links, $attributes = array('class' => 'links')) {
  global $language;
  $output = '';

  if (count($links) > 0) {
    $output = '<ul'. drupal_attributes($attributes) .'>';

    $num_links = count($links);
    $i = 1;

    foreach ($links as $key => $link) {
      $class = $key;

      // Add first, last and active classes to the list of links to help out themers.
      if ($i == 1) {
        $class .= ' first';
      }
      if ($i == $num_links) {
        $class .= ' last';
      }
      if (isset($link['href']) && ($link['href'] == $_GET['q'] || ($link['href'] == '<front>' && drupal_is_front_page()))
          && (empty($link['language']) || $link['language']->language == $language->language)) {
        $class .= ' active';
      }
      $output .= '<li'. drupal_attributes(array('class' => $class)) .'>';

      if (isset($link['href'])) {
        // Pass in $link as $options, they share the same keys.

        // check if menu id attribute is set to primary-links
        if(isset($attributes['id']) && $attributes['id'] == 'primary-links') {

          // add html to link options 
          $link['html'] = true;

          // wrap text with span
          $output .= l('<span>' . $link['title'] . '</span>', $link['href'], $link);

        } else {
          $output .= l($link['title'], $link['href'], $link);
        }

      }
      else if (!empty($link['title'])) {
        // Some links are actually not links, but we wrap these in <span> for adding title and class attributes
        if (empty($link['html'])) {
          $link['title'] = check_plain($link['title']);
        }
        $span_attributes = '';
        if (isset($link['attributes'])) {
          $span_attributes = drupal_attributes($link['attributes']);
        }
        $output .= '<span'. $span_attributes .'>'. $link['title'] .'</span>';
      }

      $i++;
      $output .= "</li>\n";
    }

    $output .= '</ul>';
  }

  return $output;
}

Then edit page.tpl.php and add id attribute for $primary_links menu

print theme('links', $primary_links, array('id' => 'primary-links', 'class' => 'links clearfix'));