The Setup

I have 2 taxonomies and 1 post type:

• Post Type: products
• Hierarchical Taxonomy: product_cat
• Nonhierarchical Taxonomy: product_type

The product-category has a defined endpoint:

add_endpoint( 'types', EP_PRODUCT_CAT );

Now I’m trying to create a fairly lengthy URL that combines both the taxonomies:

https://www.example.com/products/parent-product-cat/child-product-cat/types/top-product-type/

Which works, the types query var is set, the product_cat is set to what it needs to be too – rainbows and bubblegum.

The Issue

Pagination. I’m using paginate_links() which drops my types query var entirely and assigns it’s value to product_cat query var which results in a 404. The trail begins with add_args parameter of paginate_links(). I can pass both product_cat and types and pagination works:

global $wp_query;
$term_cat  = get_term_by( 'slug', get_query_var( 'term' ), get_query_var( 'taxonomy' ) );
$term_type = get_term_by( 'slug', get_query_var( 'types' ), 'product_type' );

echo paginate_links( array(
        'base'          => '%_%',
        'format'        => '?paged=%#%',
        'current'       => max( 1, get_query_var( 'paged' ) ),
        'total'         => $wp_query->max_num_pages,
        'end_size'      => 0,
        'mid_size'      => 2,
        'prev_next'     => false,
        'add_args'      => array(
            'product_cat'   => $term_cat->slug,
            'types'         => $term_type->slug,
        ),
) );

So the query_vars are there now but the permalinks are now ugly since paginate_links() is just appending them as $_GET parameters:

https://www.example.com/products/parent-product-cat/child-product-cat/types/top-product-type/page/2/?product_cat=abc&types=123

Since the permalink structure is still intact during pagination I’m unsure if rewrite rules will be helpful at this point – but I’ve given it a try and it doesn’t appear to do much at all:

/**
 * Endpoints and Rewrites
 *
 * @return void
 */
function theme_endpoints_rewrites() {
    add_rewrite_rule( '^products/([^/]+)/types/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?', 'index.php?post_type=products&product_cat=$matches[1]&types=$matches[3]&paged=$matches[4]', 'top' );
    add_rewrite_endpoint( 'types', EP_PRODUCT_CAT );
    flush_rewrite_rules(true);
}
add_action( 'init', 'theme_endpoints_rewrites' );

I’ve also tried to modify the pagination links URLs to be home_url() and attempt to rewrite it given the passed arguments but also to no avail. If I leave the permalink structure as Default ( plain ) the pages load as expected. It seems to happen whenever WordPress rewrites the paged query var.

The below almost works. It shows that product_cat has the correct / expected value but it concatenates both types and paged query vars into 1 value so that my query var holds [types] => cotton/page/2 and drops the paged query var.

function test_rewrites( $wp_rewrite ) {

    $wp_rewrite->rules['products/(.+?)/types/(.+?)/page/?([0-9]{1,})/?$'] = 'index.php?product_cat=$matches[1]&types=$matches[2]&paged=$matches[3]';
    unset( $wp_rewrite->rules['products/(.+?)/page/?([0-9]{1,})/?$'] );
    unset( $wp_rewrite->extra_rules_top['products/(.+?)/page/?([0-9]{1,})/?$'] );

}
add_action( 'generate_rewrite_rules', 'test_rewrites' );

Does anyone know how I can add pagination to the endpoint while keeping my desired URLs?