Title: PHP Notice: Array to String Conversion in formatting.php
Last modified: August 21, 2016

---

# PHP Notice: Array to String Conversion in formatting.php

 *  [jdjenkins](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jdjenkins/)
 * (@jdjenkins)
 * [12 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/php-notice-array-to-string-conversion-in-formattingphp/)
 * Running WordPress 3.8 and PHP 5.4.20
 * So I’m getting this notice in my php error log basically every 15 seconds – `
   PHP Notice: Array to string conversion in /home/websaum/public_html/wp-includes/
   formatting.php on line 2809`
    which is from this function –
 *     ```
       function _deep_replace( $search, $subject ) {
       	$subject = (string) $subject;
   
       	$count = 1;
       	while ( $count ) {
       		$subject = str_replace( $search, '', $subject, $count );
       	}
   
       	return $subject;
       }
       ```
   
 * The file hasn’t been corrupted or modified.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  [catacaustic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/catacaustic/)
 * (@catacaustic)
 * [12 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/php-notice-array-to-string-conversion-in-formattingphp/#post-4507877)
 * From that it looks like whatever is being passed in for `$search` is an array,
   and not a string as the function expects.
 * As for how to track that down, that’s probably a bit harder. I’d start off by
   doing the standard de-bigging process of deactivating all plugins and switching
   to the default theme. Then one-by-one re-enable each plugin and then the theme,
   and test in between each one to see if the problem still exists. That should 
   tell you whcih plugin or your theme that’s causing the problem.
 *  [dgdax](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dgdax/)
 * (@dgdax)
 * [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/php-notice-array-to-string-conversion-in-formattingphp/#post-4508142)
 * This seems to be a ‘standard’ issue in many WP installations – I also stumbled
   across it while trying to debug another issue: with debug output activated the
   error occurs many times. (running WPv3.9.1)
 * Two locations highlighted for me (in wp_includes/formatting.php):
    line #448:
   function _wp_specialchars line #583: function wp_check_invalid_utf8 … but could
   easily arise in several other instances.
 * To correct this, code needs to check for arrays being passed, and either reject
   them, or process them. I chose the latter, adding the following code to each 
   immediately after the function declaration:
    for _wp_specialchars:
 *     ```
       if( is_array($string) ){
       		foreach($string as $k=>$sVal){
       			$string[$k] = _wp_specialchars( $sVal, $quote_style, $charset, $double_encode );
       		}
       		return $string;
       	}
       ```
   
 * for wp_check_invalid_utf8:
 *     ```
       if( is_array($string) ){
       		foreach($string as $k=>$sVal){
       			$string[$k] = wp_check_invalid_utf8( $sVal, $strip );
       		}
       		return $string;
       	}
       ```
   
 * Don’t know if this is really fixing anything – but site appears to be working,
   and without these notices occurring.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The topic ‘PHP Notice: Array to String Conversion in formatting.php’ is closed to
new replies.

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 2 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [dgdax](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dgdax/)
 * Last activity: [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/php-notice-array-to-string-conversion-in-formattingphp/#post-4508142)
 * Status: not resolved

## Topics

### Topics with no replies

### Non-support topics

### Resolved topics

### Unresolved topics

### All topics