Remove wp_list_pages() Links for Parent Pages

Creating a page list in WordPress is super easy. All it takes is one function call: <?php wp_list_pages(); ?>. The only problem with the list is if you have sub-pages categorized under pages that you only want to use as a way to organize your pages. Your parents pages are still linked to in the list but most likely they will be empty. I decided to create a quick function to solve this problem.

Just place this in your theme’s functions.php file.

<?php
function removeParentLinks() {
$pages = wp_list_pages('echo=0&amp;title_li=');
$pages = explode("</li>", $pages);
$count = 0;
foreach($pages as $page) {
if(strstr($page,"<ul>")) {
$page = explode('<ul>', $page);
$page[0] = str_replace('</a>','',$page[0]);
$page[0] = preg_replace('/\<a(.*)\>/','',$page[0]);
if(count($page) == 3) {
$page[1] = str_replace('</a>','',$page[1]);
$page[1] = preg_replace('/\<a(.*)\>/','',$page[1]);                
}
$page = implode('<ul>', $page);
}
$pages[$count] = $page;
$count++;
}
$pages = implode('</li>',$pages);
echo $pages;
}
?>

Now just replace your wp_list_pages(); function with removeParentLinks(); and away you go.

NOTE: This only works for page lists that are three levels deep or less.