WordPress: multiple loops

Question

I have two loops on my page - each with their own category. It works, but I don't know if this is the best practice as I'm pretty new to this stuff.

<?php $my_query = new WP_Query( 'category_name=news&posts_per_page=3' );
 while ( $my_query->have_posts() ) : $my_query->the_post();
 $do_not_duplicate[] = $post->ID; ?>
 <!-- Do stuff... -->
<?php get_template_part( 'content', get_post_format() ); ?>
<?php endwhile; ?>
<?php $second_query = new WP_Query( 'category_name=reviews&posts_per_page=4' );
 while ( $second_query->have_posts() ) : $second_query->the_post();
 $do_not_duplicate[] = $post->ID; ?>
 <!-- Do stuff... -->
<?php get_template_part( 'content', get_post_format() ); ?>
<?php endwhile; ?>

• alexwc_: the <!-- Do stuff... --> was just comments that were part of the paste. this is functioning code. I'm not sure why this is off-topic, I'm new to the site and was (perhaps mistakenly) under the impression this question fit within the parameters.
• Malachi: you only need one set of <?php ?> tags. everything inside of them is PHP code.
• 200_success: Many times, people post code with "Do stuff" as placeholders for code that they don't feel like showing, but we can't really review partial code of that nature. It turned out not to be the case here, do I have taken the question off hold. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
• Brythan: You might get better reviews from the WordPress Development Stack Exchange. Note that your code is really quite simple -- the main questions are how it works in WordPress and what the WordPress coding standards are. You may find that the feedback here is from people who are unaware of the coding standards. Note: this does not mean that your question is off-topic here. It simply may get better feedback from the more WordPress oriented site.

Answer 1

The only thing that changes between the first and second half is the query parameters.

<?php
foreach (array('news' => 3, 'reviews' => 4) as $category => $posts_per_page) {
 $wp_query = new WP_Query(
 "category_name=$category&posts_per_page=$posts_per_page"
 );
 while ( $wp_query->have_posts() ) {
 # etc.
 }
}
?>

Answer 2

Since you don't have any literals in this PHP file you don't need to open and close the PHP tags all over the place.

Here is how it would look if you did what I am saying.

<?php 
 $my_query = new WP_Query( 'category_name=news&posts_per_page=3' );
 while ( $my_query->have_posts() ) : 
 $my_query->the_post();
 $do_not_duplicate[] = $post->ID; 
 get_template_part( 'content', get_post_format() ); 
 endwhile; 
 $second_query = new WP_Query( 'category_name=reviews&posts_per_page=4' );
 while ( $second_query->have_posts() ) : 
 $second_query->the_post();
 $do_not_duplicate[] = $post->ID; 
 get_template_part( 'content', get_post_format() ); 
 endwhile; 
?>

This makes it much clearer what your code is doing.

I would rewrite it like this and double check that the code is actually doing what you want it to do. My guess is that you have copy pasted this code from somewhere and are trying to alter it to fit your purposes.

• Brythan: I think the excessive opens and closes are part of the standard for WordPress templates. They do this in part to make it easy to add HTML.