Convert Currency on your Website or in a WordPress Post (with Shortcode)

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When we read traditional news media, financials are usually defined in US dollars and then converted to a local currency for comparison. The following function (and the associated WordPress shortcode function) will use Google’s “calculator” to convert currency (using a CURL request) and return the comparative result in local dollars.

In traditional newspapers, the currency comparison is usually fixed — defined by the conversion at the time the story was published. In the new media world, we tend to extract as much functionality from third-party API’s and other providers to ensure real-time information. The following functions are another means of ensuring blogs remain current and relevant.

The shortcode

First, the shortcode. Used in a WordPress post, the shortcode of [conversion amount=”750″] will output $USD750 ($AUD764.53). The $750 is the USD value while the value in brackets is generated in real time and represents the local dollar value.

Available parameters are as follows:

from – The from currency
to – The currency we’re converting into
amount – the dollar value to convert
time – the cache period

To use the function, copy the following into your theme’s functions.php file or add it into your shortcode plugin.

// Currency Conversion
function currency_conversion($atts) {
  extract(shortcode_atts(array(
    'from' => 'USD',
    'to' => 'AUD',
    'amount' => '',
    'time' => '21600'
  ), $atts));

  $currencytransient = 'conv_' . $from . $to . $amount;
  $cachedresult =  get_transient($currencytransient);

  if ($cachedresult !== false ) {
	return $cachedresult;
	} else { 

    $amount = urlencode($amount);
    $from_Currency = urlencode($from);
    $to_Currency = urlencode($to);
    $url = "http://www.google.com/ig/calculator?hl=en&q=$amount$from_Currency=?$to_Currency";
    $ch = curl_init();
    $timeout = 0;
    curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch,  CURLOPT_USERAGENT , "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1)");
    curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, $timeout);
    $rawdata = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);
    $data = explode('"', $rawdata);
    $data = explode(' ', $data['3']);
    $var = $data['0'];
    $conversion = '$'.$from.$amount.' ($'.$to. round($var,2) . ')';
      set_transient($currencytransient, $conversion, 60*60*12);
      update_option($currencytransient, $conversion);
    return $conversion;
    }
}
add_shortcode('conversion', 'currency_conversion');

By default, the result is cached for 6 hours. You can alter this as required by changing the time parameter. Used on financial websites, it gives you a nice way of presenting a single dollar conversion. As an example, the shortcode of [conversion amount=”1″] will output $USD1 ($AUD1.02). If I wanted to convert 1 Australian Dollar to NZ dollars, I would use [conversion from=”AUD’ to=”NZD” amount=”1″] and it would output $USD1 ($NZD1.22).

Basic PHP Function

Used outside of WordPress, the same function can be used as follows:

<?php
function currency($from_Currency,$to_Currency,$amount) {
    $amount = urlencode($amount);
    $from_Currency = urlencode($from_Currency);
    $to_Currency = urlencode($to_Currency);
    $url = "http://www.google.com/ig/calculator?hl=en&q=$amount$from_Currency=?$to_Currency";
    $ch = curl_init();
    $timeout = 0;
    curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch,  CURLOPT_USERAGENT , "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1)");
    curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, $timeout);
    $rawdata = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);
    $data = explode('"', $rawdata);
    $data = explode(' ', $data['3']);
    $var = $data['0'];
    return round($var,2);
}
?>

Usage:

$from_Currency ="USD";
$to_Currency ="AUD";
$amount ="1000";
echo currency($from_Currency,$to_Currency,$amount);

You will need to alter with the code a little to ensure it fomats in an appropriate manner. Download the code in a text file below.

First Name: Your Email Address:

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