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WordPress PHP for WordPress PHP Basics for WordPress The Loop

I don't understand the colon inside the loop

I don't understand how the sections connect to each other. Like "while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();" I don't see where it finds the connecting colon further down in the code.

2 Answers

Genevieve Herres
PLUS
Genevieve Herres
Courses Plus Student 3,457 Points

This is actually a PHP structure. In PHP you can have your while loop enclosed with curly braces or using colon and endwhile. Both are completely legal.

Example with curly braces: while ( have_posts) { the_post(); //more code }

Example with colon and endwhile: while ( have_posts) : the_post(); // more code endwhile;

The fact that while ( have_posts) : the_post(); is all on the same line is just shorting of the code. PHP isn't very picky about whitespace.

For more information, see the PHP manual: http://php.net/manual/en/control-structures.while.php

Liam Maclachlan
Liam Maclachlan
22,805 Points

To add to this (and slightly off topic), you can also omit the colon or curly braces completely if you are own running a single line of code, or another conditional, in the conditional. Some examples:

<?php

// simple single line example 
if ( true )
    return true;

// also works without the dropped line
if ( true ) return true;

// simple single line conditionals example with else
if ( true )
    echo 'got it';
else 
    echo 'not got it';

// single line foreach with multiline if statement
foreach ( $items as $array )
    if ( in_array( 'needle', $array ) ) :
        // do lots of stuff here
        $var = 'string';
        $var .= ' with more attached';
        echo $var;
    endif;
?>

Ohhhh, I see! It's in place of the curly braces. Thanks!