Get Archive URL In Array Format With wp_get_archives And Regex

In this blog, we will learn how to extract just the monthly archive URL/path , instead of markup.

function get_monthly_archive_array() {
   $years      = [];
   $years_args = [
      'type'      => 'monthly',
      'format'    => 'custom',
      'before'    => '',
      'after'     => '|',
      'echo'      => false,
      'post_type' => 'post',
//    'order'     => 'ASC',
   ];

   // Get Years
   $years_content = wp_get_archives( $years_args );

   if ( ! empty( $years_content ) ) {
      $years_arr = explode( '|', $years_content );

      // Remove empty whitespace item from array.
      $years_arr = array_filter( $years_arr, function ( $item ) {
         return trim( $item ) !== '';
      } );

      foreach ( $years_arr as $year_item ) {

         $year_row = trim( $year_item );
         preg_match( '/href=["\']?([^"\'>]+)["\']>(.+)<\/a>/', $year_row, $year_vars );

         if ( ! empty( $year_vars ) && is_array( $year_vars ) ) {
            $year_url = ! empty( $year_vars[1] ) ? $year_vars[1] : ''; // Eg: http://demo.com/2021/11/
            $parts    = parse_url( $year_url );
            $path     = ! empty( $parts['path'] ) ? $parts['path'] : '';

            $years[] = [
               'name'  => $year_vars[2], // Eg: November 2021
               'value' => $path // Eg: /2021/11/ , so that we can prefix o suffix our own URL.
            ];
         }
      }
   }

   return $years;
}

Output