Title: Variables through get_posts? query_posts?
Last modified: August 19, 2016

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# Variables through get_posts? query_posts?

 *  [adlh](https://wordpress.org/support/users/adlh/)
 * (@adlh)
 * [17 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/variables-through-get_posts-query_posts/)
 * I am trying to make a code that looks at the post’s tag, and then finds posts
   with the same tags and displays the titles of those posts. This is so that it
   can display “RELATED POSTS”.
 * <?php
    $posttags = get_the_tags(); if ($posttags) { foreach($posttags as $tag){
   global $post; print $tag->name . ‘ ‘; $tagged=$tag->name . ‘ ‘; print $tagged;
   $myposts = get_posts(‘tag=’$tagged); foreach($myposts as $post) { ?>
    - 
    -  <?php } ?>
       <?php } ?> <?php } ?>
    - but it doesn’t work. it prints out the tag name, so i know it’s definitely
      getting it inside the variables, and if i replace the get_posts variable for
      the actual string, it finds the posts so the functions are working. but together,
      its not actually giving me the results.
    - Can someone help me with this? Or is there an easier way to do this?

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

 *  Anonymous User
 * (@anonymized-473288)
 * [16 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/variables-through-get_posts-query_posts/#post-1056970)
 * This bit of code seems to work. Not sure if it is the best way.
 *     ```
       $tag_to_post = "'tag=" . $tag->name . "'";
        global $post;
        $postslist = get_posts($tag__to_post);
       ```
   
 * You will have to write the other code around it. 😉
 * You could check out the YARPP Yet Another Related Posts Plugin:
    [http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/yet-another-related-posts-plugin/](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/yet-another-related-posts-plugin/)
 * As well as a number of other plugins. Plugins can be found on this website at‘
   Extend’ at the top right of the screen and then ‘Plugins’ in the left menu.
 * If you do a search for ‘related posts’ (without the quotation marks) you get 
   the following results:
    [http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search.php?q=related+posts](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search.php?q=related+posts)
 *  Anonymous User
 * (@anonymized-473288)
 * [16 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/variables-through-get_posts-query_posts/#post-1056971)
 * Update:
    My bad. That should be $tag->slug according to: [http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags/get_posts](http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags/get_posts)
 *     ```
       $tag_to_post = "'tag=" . $tag->slug . "'";
        global $post;
        $postslist = get_posts($tag__to_post);
       ```
   
 * In retrospect it appears not be working either way.
    Not sure what is going on.
 *  Anonymous User
 * (@anonymized-473288)
 * [16 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/variables-through-get_posts-query_posts/#post-1056972)
 * Aha. It appears that the variable for the tags needs to be in an array. 🙂
 * So something like this, which appears to work:
 *     ```
       <?
       $posttags = get_the_tags($post->ID);
       if ($posttags) {
       /*Define counter*/
       $counter = 0;
         foreach($posttags as $tag) {
         /*Add to counter*/
         $counter++;
          $tag_post = $tag->name;
          echo '<a href="';
          echo get_tag_link($tag);
          echo '">';
          echo $tag_post;
          echo '</a>';
        ?>
       <ul>
       <?
       $args=array(
          'tag'=>$tag_post,
          'orderby'=>date,
          'order' => asc,
            );
       $my_query = new WP_Query($args); 
   
       while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post(); ?>
        <li><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
       <?php endwhile; ?>
       </ul>
       <?
         }
       }
       ?>
       ```
   
 * If you want to list all the posts under one heading you will have to rewrite 
   the code. I am using a ‘wp_query’. I don’t know if you could use a ‘for each’
   loop.
    See also ‘tag parameters’ for ‘query_posts’ in the codex: [http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags/query_posts#Tag_Parameters](http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags/query_posts#Tag_Parameters)
 * Unfortunately I don’t know enough about this subject to write the perfectly optimized
   code.
 * Please feel free to post any improvements.
 * The counter ‘for each’ loop with thanks to the people in this topic:
    [http://wordpress.org/support/topic/276635?replies=4](http://wordpress.org/support/topic/276635?replies=4)
 *  [Mark / t31os](https://wordpress.org/support/users/t31os_/)
 * (@t31os_)
 * [16 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/variables-through-get_posts-query_posts/#post-1056973)
 * Here’s a slightly cleaner version for you… just cleaned up what you posted a 
   little…
 * Not sure why you have the counter, are you using it further down in the code 
   somewhere that you havn’t posted above?.. if not, then it’s just counting for
   the sake of counting, but not actually doing anything..
 * Anyways, here you go..
 *     ```
       <?php
       $posttags = get_the_tags($post->ID);
       if ($posttags) {
       ?>
       	<ul>
       	<?php
       	foreach($posttags as $tag) {
       		?>
       		<li>
       			<a href="<?php echo get_tag_link($tag);?>"><?php echo $tag->name; ?></a><br />
       			<?php
       			$args = array(
       				'tag' => $tag->name,
       				'orderby' => 'date',
       				'order' => 'asc'
       				// Last array item should not have a comma on the end
       			);
       			unset($tag);
       			$my_query = new WP_Query();
       			$my_query->query($args); // Equivalent of query_posts()
       			while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post();
       			?>
       					<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a><br />
       			<?php
       			endwhile;
       			?>
       		</li>
       		<?php
       	}
       	?>
       	</ul>
       	<?php
       }
       ?>
       ```
   
 * One list instead of several, and a little less use of un-needed variables..
 * Hope that helps.. 🙂
 * p.s. sorry about the tabbing in the code, the forum seems to blow my tabbing 
   into huge proportions, my indentation is not that big in the editor…
 *  Anonymous User
 * (@anonymized-473288)
 * [16 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/variables-through-get_posts-query_posts/#post-1056975)
 * Thanx for taking the time to look at the code. 🙂
 * One thing I noticed is that you have `<br />` at the end of your href tags within
   the li tags. I am not sure, but I seem to remember this is against W3C specs.
 * The counter was part of the original code at the link at the bottom of my previous
   post. As I was not certain what it did, I thought it best to leave it in there
   until the code is tweaked to perfection.
 * As for the number of lists, that is because I am working on this bit of code 
   which will (when it is finished) create tabs automatically based on the number
   of tags:
    [http://wordpress.org/support/topic/219641?replies=3](http://wordpress.org/support/topic/219641?replies=3)
 * Hadn’t figured out how to get the posts inside the tabs, until I ran into this
   topic. Considering the poster had a similar question, I posted the code that 
   I did find, and was able to piece together so far. Up to anyone else to customize
   it as needed. 😉
 * Thanks again for posting the code. Much appreciated. 🙂
 *  [Mark / t31os](https://wordpress.org/support/users/t31os_/)
 * (@t31os_)
 * [16 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/variables-through-get_posts-query_posts/#post-1056976)
 * Well to fix the invalidation (if it is, i don’t know personally), you could just
   add a class to those links, then set that given class to `display:block`, you’d
   then get the appearance of new lines without the need to actually write them 
   in… 😉
 * Although i’m pretty sure the above can be refined…
 * Displaying the titles linking to posts, and using a complete query to the posts
   table is inefficient… because you’re essentially grabbing all the data on those
   posts while only displaying/using 2 pieces of information from that data, however
   this isn’t uncommon and i see this alot here and on WordPress guides… unless 
   WordPress does some special data flushing after queries then this data is just
   floating around being unused unless it’s cleared/unset..
 * How much of a difference does it make? … no idea, it could be marginable, and
   not even worth a mention… but i’m not hugely concerned enough to benchmark the
   differences or hunt pages of code to refine….
 * “If it’s not broken” …
 *  Anonymous User
 * (@anonymized-473288)
 * [16 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/variables-through-get_posts-query_posts/#post-1056977)
 * >  Well to fix the invalidation (if it is, i don’t know personally), you could
   > just add a class to those links, then set that given class to display:block,
   > you’d then get the appearance of new lines without the need to actually write
   > them in… 😉
 * According to W3C specs, as far as I know, and please correct me if I am wrong,
   this might be incorrect. I believe, as I understand, the proper way might be 
   to go for a nested list or definition list in such cases. But I am not a 100%
   sure. As far as I understood lists should be used for just lists, and not paragraph
   style or multiple lines in one go that have a different function. From an accessibility
   point of view it might be confusing as well. And in some countries accessible
   design is being made, if it isn’t already, obligated by law. Which is a good 
   thing, as it benefits all. W3C and search engines are keen on accessible design
   as well. I forgot to add it last time, but the links should have a title tag,
   which might cancel the need for using a nested list or definition list. I am 
   not sure though about that last part though, or if one should want to go down
   that road… So far I have found accessibility design has actually made my life
   as a designer easier.
 * >  Displaying the titles linking to posts, and using a complete query to the 
   > posts table is inefficient… because you’re essentially grabbing all the data
   > on those posts while only displaying/using 2 pieces of information from that
   > data, however this isn’t uncommon and i see this alot here and on WordPress
   > guides… unless WordPress does some special data flushing after queries then
   > this data is just floating around being unused unless it’s cleared/unset..
 * Honestly, I haven’t seen enough code written for WordPress to know about that.
   From a personal programming ethics point of view I would go for the optimized
   version, keeping database and server load to a minimum. Like I said the code 
   I am writing is code in development. However caching can in this case can eliminate(
   to some extent) the need to optimize the code, but it would however be ugly code
   writing in my opinion. But yeah definitely, running for example 100 queries for
   a 100 tags per post could possibly definitely affect the performance to the point
   that it could be detrimental (depending on the server setup of course). This 
   is general and not WordPress related. Caching should be able to catch this (to
   some degree) and save server load on multiple views of the same post, but like
   I said it depends on the use case whether or not this is a feasible option. There
   might be better ways to do it, such as rewinding the posts and using the original
   query.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

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## Tags

 * [get_posts](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/get_posts/)
 * [query_posts](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/query_posts/)

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 7 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: Anonymous User
 * Last activity: [16 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/variables-through-get_posts-query_posts/#post-1056977)
 * Status: not resolved

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