ambius

I’m not using any plugins that affect post content or excerpts.

this is the very simple code I’m using

<? query_posts('posts_per_page=10&caller_get_posts=1');
function new_excerpt_length($length) {
	return 20;
}
add_filter('excerpt_length', 'new_excerpt_length');
if( have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
    <div class="post">
        <div class="post-title"><a>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <? the_title_attribute(); ?>"><? the_title(); ?></a></div>
        <div class="post-date"><? the_date('F j, y') ?></div>
        <div class="post-content"><? the_excerpt() ?></div>
        <div class="post-footer">POSTED BY <? the_author() ?> and last updated on <? the_modified_time('F jS, Y'); ?> at <? the_modified_time('g:i a'); ?>
            <? comments_popup_link('« 0 Comments »', '1 Comment', '% Comments'); ?>
        </div>
    </div>
    <p>&nbsp;</p>
<? endwhile; endif; //end the loop ?>

and here is the page on my test server if you want to see the wordcount outputs for yourself
http://uofmbooks.com/wordpress/
the first 7 posts are fine, but the 8th post “Minutes for 2-1-10” contains 30 words. Minutes for 10-27 has 22 words. etc…

sorry for posting in my own topic, yet again, but I think I finally fixed my problem and wanted to share the code in case it helps someone else.

I added caller_get_posts=1 to my query arguments to treat sticky posts like a normal post. This works great for me because I didn’t want any of those stickies to be sticky on my index (only on a few archive pages). Now when I tell it to give me 3 posts it gives exactly 3. and when I ask for 6 it gives me exactly 6.

However, I still think WP is bugged because when you allow stickies to be sticky, the posts per page count is off by 1. an easy programming mistake to make.