Custom loop in single post template

What about this approach:

• Save the current post
• Get the category and ID of the current post
• Get all posts in that category
• Loop through the array of posts checking IDs against the saved ID
• Until you find the saved ID copy posts to the ‘before’ array
• After you find the saved ID, copy to the ‘after’ array

Thank you for that, I’ll try it out and get back to you!

So, I couldn’t quite figure out how to do the whole “copy posts to array”-deal, so I endedup doing this instead:

LINK TO PASTEBIN

Or in other words:

• Display the first loop and save the id in a variable
• Create a new loop that checks against the variable to make sure it only displays the following posts
• Create a third loop that checks against the variable to make sure it only displays the items that are “younger” than the original post

This seems to me to be a bit ineffecient, very php and database request-heavy, so if there’s a smarter way, please let me know!

Sorry for the confusion. If you do a query to get all posts in the category, they are in an array in $wp_query->posts. You can treat this just like any other array.

So the thing I don’t understand is how I store those posts that are either too “young” or too “old” to be displayed yet, in another array.

Can I just go:

if ( $original_post >= $post->ID ) $before[] = $wp_query->posts;

??

And even if that’s the case, how do I then retrieve those posts from the before-array, when I’m ready to use them?

I’m sorry, but I’ve read the Codex entrys on the loop so many times, but it’s still very complicated to me.

//A

I think this will work (UNTESTED). Assume current post ID is in $current_ID:

$found_current = 0;
foreach ($wp_query->posts as $apost) {
   if ($apost->ID == $current_ID) {
      $found_current = 1;
   } elseif ($found_current) {
      $after[] = $apost;
   } else {
      $before[] = $apost;
   }
}

Thank you, but still: I don’t understand how I can then go ahead and actually retrieve/display those posts in the wanted order?

Is this better?

query_posts( array ('category_name' => $categoryname, 'posts_per_page' =>-1));
if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();
   $found_current = 0;
   if ( $original_post == $post->ID ) {
      $found_current = 1;
   } elseif ($found_current) {
      // do after stuff
   } else {
      //do before stuff
   }
endwhile; endif;

Nope ??

It just loops through all the posts in a regular order starting at number 1.

And what I don’t understand is, you say
elseif ($found_current)
but “if found_current” what? I guess its just a syntax I’m unfamiliar with, but it seems to me you’re not comparing it against anything?

But thank you anyway.

Did you replace lines 9 – 19 in your pastebin code with the lines I gave you? The value of $original_post is set in line 5, so that first loop must remain.

The if statement translated: if ($found_current has a value other than zero)

I tried that now, and it doesn’t quite work. Assume I’m viewing post no. 5, it ends up showing first post no 5 (yay), but then it shows 1,2,3,4, and 6,7,8,9,10 etc.
But what I want is: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and then, 1, 2, 3, 4.
Oh well.

Just reverse the posts array:

query_posts( array ('category_name' => $categoryname, 'posts_per_page' =>-1));
if ( have_posts() ) :
   $wp_query->posts = array_reverse($wp_query->posts);
   while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();
      // rest of the code

EDIT: That won’t quite give you what you want. I will work on a solution and get back to you.

Hah, now it shows 5, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1. What a mess.

But thanks fot not losing faith ??

Please give this a try:

query_posts( array ('category_name' => $categoryname, 'posts_per_page' =>-1));
if ( have_posts() ) :
   $before = array();
   $after = array();
   $found_current = 0;
   for ($i=0;$i < sizeof($wp_query->posts) ; ++$i ) {
      $this_post = $wp_query->posts[$i];
      if ($original_post == $this_post->ID) {
         $save_current = $this_post;
         $found_current = 1;
      } elseif ($found_current) {
         $after[] = $this_post;
      } else {
         $before[] = $this_post;
      }
   }
   $before[] = $save_current;
   $wp_query->posts = array_merge(array_reverse($before), array_reverse($after));
   while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();
      if ($post->ID == $original_post) continue;

It works! Sort of.. I took out the array_reverse function and just merged the arrays like this
array_merge($after, $before);
And that did the trick, the posts show up like this now: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 1, 2, 3, 4. Fantastic. Thank you very much. But tell me:
1. Is your version more efficient than the one I posted in the pastebin?
2. Only if you have the time, could you explain to me what lines 3-15 in your code exactly do, just so that I feel like I’ve learned something ??

//A.