How to change the default structure generation of single post permalinks?

Question

I want to change the output of the_permalink() function and the likes. So, I don't want to change the mermalink structure for all the post types, only the 'post' post type, and only the single page.

I already changed the rewrite rules so that

mysite.com/news/2016/the-news-title  

will drive the user to the single post page template and display content properly. Fine. Now, as I said, I want the_permalink() function to generate links with that structure.

How could I do it?

Answer 1

Ok following Noman indications, I can post my own answer. I could the 'the_permalink' filter and modify the output if post_type == 'post'. The basic code:

add_filter('the_permalink', 'edit_the_permalink', 10, 2);
function edit_the_permalink($permalink, $post) {
  // you should pass the post object when calling the_permalink()
  if(is_object($post) && $post->post_type == 'post'){
    // [...do the magic...]
    return $permalink;
  }
}

Please note that both the_permalink() and get_permalink() (alias get_the_permalink()) accept the $post argument and you should pass it as a post object.

Also, note that you can do pretty much the same with the post_type_link filter if you want modify the custom post types permalink generation (output of get_post_permalink()). In this case the callback will receive 4 parameters: $post_link, $post, $leavename, $sample.