is there a better way of combining this?

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Hoping someone can point me in the direction of writing this in a more succinct way.

I’m working on my website, and want to display a total of 5 posts from the category ‘general wonderings’.

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The first post has different styling from the other 4. Please see code below,

Now, 2 problems… they way I’ve written it means that there is a duplicate post and secondly – surely there’s a better way of combining this into one, rather than the way I’ve written it?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you 

    <div class="columns">
      <?php
$args = array( 'category_name' => 'General Wonderings', 'posts_per_page' => 1 );
$lastposts = get_posts( $args );
foreach($lastposts as $post) : setup_postdata($post); ?>
      <article>
        <h3><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">
          <?php the_title(); ?>
          </a></h3>
        <h4>
          <?php the_date(); ?>
        </h4>
        <p>
          <?php the_excerpt(); ?>
        </p>
        <p><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">Read more</a></p>
      </article>
      <?php endforeach; ?>
    </div>
    <div class="columns">
      <?php
$args = array( 'category_name' => 'General Wonderings', 'posts_per_page' => 4 );
$lastposts = get_posts( $args );
foreach($lastposts as $post) : setup_postdata($post); ?>
      <article>
        <h4><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">
          <?php the_title(); ?>
          <br/>
          <span><?php echo substr($post->post_excerpt, 0,30); ?>...<br/>
          <?php the_date(); ?>
          </span></a></h4>
      </article>
      <?php endforeach; ?>
    </div>
Post Views: 4

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2 comments

  2. I would worry more about performance than succinct code– shortened it up a little though. Right now you are running two queries. That is not necessary, and that is the biggest issue with this code in my opinion.

    $args = array( 'category_name' => 'General Wonderings', 'posts_per_page' => 5 );
$lastposts = get_posts( $args );
$first = true; ?>
<div class="columns"><?php
foreach($lastposts as $post) {
  setup_postdata($post); ?>
    <article><?php
    if ($first) { ?>
      <h3><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">
       <?php the_title(); ?>
      </a></h3>
      <h4>
       <?php the_date(); ?>
      </h4>
      <p>
       <?php the_excerpt(); ?>
      </p>
      <p><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">Read more</a></p>
      </div><div class="columns"><?php // close the first div and open the second
      $first = false;
    } else { ?>
      <h4><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">
        <?php the_title(); ?>
        <br/>
        <span><?php echo substr($post->post_excerpt, 0,30); ?>...<br/>
          <?php the_date(); ?>
        </span></a>
      </h4><?php
    } ?>
    </article><?php
} ?>
</div>

    Hopefully I preserved the formatting and don’t have any syntax errors 🙂