Title: WP_Roles::get_role
Published: April 25, 2014
Last modified: May 20, 2026

---

# WP_Roles::get_role( string $role ): 󠀁[WP_Role](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_role/)󠁿|null

## In this article

 * [Parameters](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_roles/get_role/?output_format=md#parameters)
 * [Return](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_roles/get_role/?output_format=md#return)
 * [Source](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_roles/get_role/?output_format=md#source)
 * [Related](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_roles/get_role/?output_format=md#related)
 * [Changelog](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_roles/get_role/?output_format=md#changelog)

[ Back to top](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_roles/get_role/?output_format=md#wp--skip-link--target)

Retrieves a role object by name.

## 󠀁[Parameters](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_roles/get_role/?output_format=md#parameters)󠁿

 `$role`stringrequired

Role name.

## 󠀁[Return](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_roles/get_role/?output_format=md#return)󠁿

 [WP_Role](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_role/)|null [WP_Role](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_role/)
object if found, null if the role does not exist.

## 󠀁[Source](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_roles/get_role/?output_format=md#source)󠁿

    ```php
    public function get_role( $role ) {
    	return $this->role_objects[ $role ] ?? null;
    }
    ```

[View all references](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/files/wp-includes/class-wp-roles.php/)
[View on Trac](https://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/7.0/src/wp-includes/class-wp-roles.php#L270)
[View on GitHub](https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/blob/7.0/src/wp-includes/class-wp-roles.php#L270-L272)

## 󠀁[Related](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_roles/get_role/?output_format=md#related)󠁿

| Used by | Description | 
| [WP_User::get_role_caps()](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_user/get_role_caps/)`wp-includes/class-wp-user.php` |

Retrieves all of the capabilities of the user’s roles, and merges them with individual user capabilities.

  | 
| [get_role()](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/get_role/)`wp-includes/capabilities.php` |

Retrieves role object.

  |

## 󠀁[Changelog](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_roles/get_role/?output_format=md#changelog)󠁿

| Version | Description | 
| [2.0.0](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/since/2.0.0/) | Introduced. |

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