Clean Up WordPress Shortcode Formatting

As I was working on a new premium WordPress theme for Themeforest I was having issues with my Pricing Table shortcode as it kept adding extra spacing due to stray empty paragraph (p) tags that were being added automatically by WordPress. Doing a little searching I found a great solution on the TF forum.

Clean Up WordPress Shortcodes Function

Simply copy and paste the following code into your functions.php file or wherever your hold your shortcodes. This function will clean up the output of your shortcodes, which is especially important for nested shortcodes.

Note: If you want to be able to add some spacing manually within your shortcodes you can see my post on Adding A Line Break Shortcode To WordPress.

Code provided by OrganicBeeMedia on the TF forum. Originally created by http://donalmacarthur.com.

//Clean Up WordPress Shortcode Formatting - important for nested shortcodes
//adjusted from http://donalmacarthur.com/articles/cleaning-up-wordpress-shortcode-formatting/
function parse_shortcode_content( $content ) {

   /* Parse nested shortcodes and add formatting. */
    $content = trim( do_shortcode( shortcode_unautop( $content ) ) );

    /* Remove '' from the start of the string. */
    if ( substr( $content, 0, 4 ) == '' )
        $content = substr( $content, 4 );

    /* Remove '' from the end of the string. */
    if ( substr( $content, -3, 3 ) == '' )
        $content = substr( $content, 0, -3 );

    /* Remove any instances of ''. */
    $content = str_replace( array( '<p></p>' ), '', $content );
    $content = str_replace( array( '<p>  </p>' ), '', $content );

    return $content;
}

//move wpautop filter to AFTER shortcode is processed
remove_filter( 'the_content', 'wpautop' );
add_filter( 'the_content', 'wpautop' , 99);
add_filter( 'the_content', 'shortcode_unautop',100 );