Title: WordPress Function Reference Last modified: August 18, 2016 --- # WordPress Function Reference * [Patrick Donohue](https://wordpress.org/support/users/snowfall/) * (@snowfall) * [21 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-function-reference/) * I’ve searched through this site, but can’t find a reference describing what the different php functions in WordPress do. Is there an obvious link that I’m missing here? For starters, I’m trying to figure out what the start_wp function does. Do I need to call it before making other calls to wordpress, or does it do some layout set up, etc. I’m looking for information to help with embedding WordPress into an existing web site, so understanding the function calls would be really helpful. Somewhat related, I found this tutorial interesting if you haven’t seen it, [http://www.radicalcongruency.com/20040531-tutorial-using-wordpress-to-power-your-non-blog-website](http://www.radicalcongruency.com/20040531-tutorial-using-wordpress-to-power-your-non-blog-website) Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total) * [unoamigo](https://wordpress.org/support/users/unoamigo/) * (@unoamigo) * [21 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-function-reference/#post-79577) * [http://wiki.wordpress.org](http://wiki.wordpress.org) [http://wiki.wordpress.org/TemplateTags](http://wiki.wordpress.org/TemplateTags) [http://wiki.wordpress.org/UserManual](http://wiki.wordpress.org/UserManual) The start_wp function gets the whole game rolling where it cycles through your most current posts, crosschecks to your various settings… (thats in an overly simplified answer). Technically, you could get away without using it, but it would be a serious pain. * Thread Starter [Patrick Donohue](https://wordpress.org/support/users/snowfall/) * (@snowfall) * [21 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-function-reference/#post-79608) * Thanks for the help, that’s exactly what I was looking for! I kept doing searches in wiki and couldn’t find anything, searches aren’t much good if you’re not looking for the right thing! Speaking of which, I still couldn’t find start_wp in the list of tags, I know it’s found at the start of main loop, but I saw some wordpress calls in the section of index.php . I was getting some errors from trying to make similar calls in my own attempt at an index file, so I was wondering if start_wp needed to be called first and what it’s usage/syntax was. So does start_wp fill in the wordpress data structures from the database to get it ready for retrieval? Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total) The topic ‘WordPress Function Reference’ is closed to new replies. * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/) * 2 replies * 2 participants * Last reply from: [Patrick Donohue](https://wordpress.org/support/users/snowfall/) * Last activity: [21 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-function-reference/#post-79608) * Status: not resolved ## Topics ### Topics with no replies ### Non-support topics ### Resolved topics ### Unresolved topics ### All topics