You only have to declare it as global if you’re doing that inside a function/class method that doesn’t have any reference to the $post variable. Some functions do, some don’t.
As an example, you can do this outside of a functio0n or inside one of yor template files (template files have got access to the $post variable):
echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'custom_field_name', true);
But inside of a function, you need to call it as global because there’s no reference to the $post variable inside the function.
function test_print_meta () {
global $post;
echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'custom_field_name', true);
}
Great info,
what exactly do you mean when you say: (template files have got access to the $post variable)
Is this different than page template files? Or do you mean page template files. I have functions in my page template files but have to use global $post as you stated above.
Thanks again for the solid info!
Template files are for pages, posts and everything else, so I don’t discriminate by saying “page” templates only. 🙂
As I said before, functions don’t have access to that variable. Functions are encapsulated, like closed in little balls – they only know what’s inside themselves and nothing from outside this. This means that any function anywhere doesn’t automatically know about the $post variable and it needs to be declared as global before it can be used. This applies to functions used anyhwere and in any file. The template file shav eaccess to that variable because they aren’t enclosed in functions (well, strictly speaking they are, but the global is called before your template file is included in the script so the code knows about it before your template is loaded).
Great write up thanks for this.
