Retrieving Only Latest Post from a Category

  • Resolved dshafer

    (@dshafer)


    15 years, 2 months ago

    OK, I give up. I’m stupid, blind or incompetent or WordPress’ documentation of its built-in template tags is abysmal. I’ve spent an hour looking for an answer to this question. (Where in the world is the full syntax of the query_posts function documented?)

    I need to retrieve and display the most recent post in a given category. I thought this should be easy because somehow I got the impression that getting just the most recent message is the default of query_posts(). So I tried:

    query_posts(‘category_name=Upcoming Lessons’)

    Nothing is returned but neither is an error generated. So I tried:

    query_posts(‘category_name=Upcoming Lessons&posts_per_page=1’);

    Same result. No display, no error.

    I have read everything I can find in the Codex on query_posts and have found zero help.

    Anyone care to point out where I’m doing something wrong?

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

  • This works for me:

    <?php
    $args=array(
      'category_name'=>'cat1',
      'post_type' => 'post',
      'post_status' => 'publish',
      'posts_per_page' => 1,
      'caller_get_posts'=> 1
      );
    $my_query = null;
    $my_query = new WP_Query($args);
    if( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
      echo 'List of Posts';
      while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post(); ?>
      <p><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></p>
       <?php
      endwhile;
    }
wp_reset_query();  // Restore global post data stomped by the_post().
?>

    Thread Starter dshafer

    (@dshafer)

    Michael…..

    Two things.

    First, WOW. Thank you SO much for your quick and obviously informed reply. (I think I may actually understand your code and that’s frightening in itself!) ??

    Second, holy crap this stuff is complicated. I don’t mean this PHP is so complex in itself, but to figure out how to get here from where I was? That’s a world or two away. I was obviously wrong that using query_posts with some specific argument string would get this job done. That is both enlightening and disconcerting. Evidently, WordPress just below the surface of what’s built in is what I used to call back in my younger days as a real programmer, “non-trivial.”

    Thanks again. Now I have to rethink whether I really want to invest this much effort in learning WordPress when I already know other platforms.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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