Get date of last update outside of loop

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I’m trying to figure out how to display the date that a post was last updated outside of the loop. I’m able to display the published date using get_the_time() but there doesn’t seem to be a “loopless” function to get the date of the last update.

Does anyone know hot to do this?

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6 comments

  1. It is unclear if you are looking for the last updated post or for the last updated date for some particular post. The answer by @PatJ assumes the former. To do the latter:

    $qry = new WP_Query(array('p'=>1));
var_dump($qry->posts[0]->post_modified);

    Or…

    $date = $wpdb->get_var("SELECT post_modified FROM {$wpdb->posts} WHERE ID = 1");
var_dump($date);

    Of course you need to change the post ID to match the post you are looking for.

  2. According to the Codex page for get_the_time(), it needs to be used in The Loop. The difference between the_time() and get_the_time() is that the former echo()es the date, and the latter returns it.

    There are a couple functions that do what I think you’re looking for — get the last updated date and time for a post: get_the_modified_time() and get_the_modified_date(). It looks like they too need to be used in The Loop.

    Here’s one way to get the updated date of the most recent post in your site:

    <?php
     $args = array(
        'orderby'     => 'post_modified',
        'numberposts' => 1,
    );
    $myposts = get_posts( $args );
    if( have_posts() ) {
        while( have_posts() ) {
            the_post();
            $last_update = get_the_modified_date();
        }
    }
    echo( "Last modified on $last_update." );
?>

    If you’re sure you need to be outside of any Loops, you can always use $wpdb:

    <?php
    global $wpdb;
    $sql = "SELECT post_modified
            FROM $wpdb->posts
            WHERE post_type='post'
            AND post_status='publish'
            ORDER BY post_modified DESC
            LIMIT 1";
    $last_update = $wpdb->get_var( $sql );
    echo( "Last updated $last_update." );
?>

  3. A late addition, but the following snippet can be modified to use most functions outside of the loop:

    /**
 * Returns a post's modified date, formatted according to $format.
 * @uses the_modified_time()
 *
 * @param int $post_id Post ID.
 * @param string $format Date format Default: "F j, Y".
 */
function wpse95769_modified_date_by_id( $post_id = 0, $format = "F j, Y" ){
    global $post;
    $post = &get_post( $post_id );
    setup_postdata( $post );

    $modified_time = get_the_modified_time( $format );

    wp_reset_postdata( $post );

    return $modified_time;
}

  4. Another late addition, which may be helpful to know if anyone is looking. You can use these two functions to get the post date and modified date outside the loop.

    <?php get_post_time( $d, $gmt, $post, $translate ); ?>

    and

    <?php get_post_modified_time( $d, $gmt, $post, $translate ); ?>

    You can read more about these two functions in the codex.

    http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags/get_post_time
    http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/get_post_modified_time

  5. It may not be clear from previous answers, but get_post_time() and get_post_modified_time() can be given a post object or post ID. So, to get the published and modified dates by post ID outside the loop:

    $published_time = get_post_time( $date_fmt, null, $post_id );
$modified_time = get_post_modified_time( $date_fmt, null, $post_id );

    js.