Title: Child Themes Question
Last modified: August 20, 2016

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# Child Themes Question

 *  [tixrus](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tixrus/)
 * (@tixrus)
 * [14 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/child-themes-question/)
 * OK, I get the stuff about a folder for your child theme with a style file and
   I get that you can have a custom functions.php file with nothing but additional
   functions and wordpress will load both the parent and the child It’s those **\*
   OTHER\*** theme files that I’m confused about.
 * As I understand the codex it says that other child theme files such as templates
   will be loaded INSTEAD of the parent. So… say the parent has functions A, B, 
   and C, and you want to *MODIFY* function B and add a new function D. That suggests
   that your child version of this file must have a complete copy of everything 
   in the parent plus your mods? If so, then the advantage of a child is less as
   when you upgrade you have to check to make sure your mods still make sense. It
   really should have a device called hooks and I understand that some themes do
   but I don’t think mine does.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

 *  [esmi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/esmi/)
 * (@esmi)
 * [14 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/child-themes-question/#post-2103563)
 * > That suggests that your child version of this file must have a complete copy
   > of everything in the parent plus your mods?
 * No – your child theme’s functions.php would just contain new function D & modified
   function B
 *  Thread Starter [tixrus](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tixrus/)
 * (@tixrus)
 * [14 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/child-themes-question/#post-2103628)
 * I **GET** that about functions.php. I am talking about all the **other** theme
   files **NOT** the functions.php file. My client has substantially hacked their
   theme and now wants to upgrade it and keep all their mods. They have hacked on
   at least 12 files in the parent theme. So I ran a diff between a pristine version
   and their version. So obviously I want to put all the differences in the child
   theme files. But I can’t lose all the functionality of the parent files.
 * So I repeat the question: A theme file **NOT functions.php** has functions A,
   B, C in the pristine version. My client hacked on B and wrote another function
   D. These are **NOT in functions.php**. What do I do?
 *  [esmi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/esmi/)
 * (@esmi)
 * [14 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/child-themes-question/#post-2103693)
 * > They have hacked on at least 12 files in the parent theme.
 * Then I suggest that you turn the hacked theme into a new standalone theme.
 *  Thread Starter [tixrus](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tixrus/)
 * (@tixrus)
 * [14 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/child-themes-question/#post-2103715)
 * So this means:
    A) I CAN’T reasonably upgrade the theme to take advantage of 
   new stuff that the theme developers have added and still keep the local hacks?
   B) you can’t edit theme files other than the stylesheet and the functions.php
   file without breaking easy upgradability?
 * Thank you for taking the time to answer my question but you will pardon me please
   that I think that if this is truly the case it is awfully lame!

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

The topic ‘Child Themes Question’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [child theme](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/child-theme/)
 * [hook](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/hook/)
 * [mods](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/mods/)

 * 4 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [tixrus](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tixrus/)
 * Last activity: [14 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/child-themes-question/#post-2103715)
 * Status: not resolved

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