HTML5Blank Save excerpt into array - php

Question

I am using HTML5Blank as a starting theme and it comes with this function which returns 40 chars excerpt:
<?php html5wp_excerpt('html5wp_custom_post'); ?>
My main blog page is more complex, so I am using array to store values into it and echo them where I need them:
<?php while ($the_query->have_posts()) : $the_query->the_post(); ?>
<?php $post_titles[$counter] = get_the_title($post->ID); ?>
<?php $post_excerpts[$counter] = html5wp_excerpt('html5wp_custom_post', $post_id); ?>
<?php $post_permalinks[$counter] = get_the_permalink($post->ID); ?>
<?php $post_thumbs[$counter] = get_the_post_thumbnail($post->ID, '', array('class' => 'img-fluid')); ?>
<?php $counter++; ?>
<?php endwhile; ?>
All other fields work and I can echo them, but I don't have any idea how to make excerpt work because it isn't echoing anywthing with:
<?php echo $post_excerpts[0]; ?>

Answer 1

First of all I notice, that you are using a variable called $post_id, which is not defined as far as I can see. You need to add a $post_id = $post->ID; before or alternatively you can use instead:
<?php $post_excerpts[$counter] = html5wp_excerpt('html5wp_custom_post', $post->ID); ?>
Maybe this already solves your problem. But to make sure, I will take it further.
I took a look at the functions.php of the HTML5-Blank-Theme: https://github.com/html5blank/html5blank/blob/master/src/functions.php
// Create 40 Word Callback for Custom Post Excerpts, call using html5wp_excerpt('html5wp_custom_post');
function html5wp_custom_post($length)
{
return 40;
}
So the function only returns the value of 40. I guess you can simply use the html5wp_excerpt() like this:
html5wp_excerpt(40);
Maybe there is something wrong with the html5wp_custom_post, so you can get rid of it to test this. And I also think, why use an addtional function, if it only returns a number... you can easily set it in the function call.
I don't know if this functions accepts an post ID as a parameter. So maybe it can only be used inside of a single.php page. I can't find a documentation about this, maybe you can do some research and find it out.
Here is another way to achieve it:
You can use the get_the_title() function that will accept the post id. Unfortunately, the get_the_excerpt() does not accept it.
So we first need to get the post object and then apply a filter to get the excerpt of the post. Do this by putting this code inside your while loop:
<?php $current_post = get_post($post->ID); ?>
You now have the current post as an object. In the next line, we apply the filter and save the result to the array at the right index position:
<?php $post_excerpts[$counter] = apply_filters('get_the_excerpt', $current_post->post_excerpt); ?>
I wonder why there are so many php opening and closing tags, so you could make your code more readable:
<?php while ($the_query->have_posts()) : $the_query->the_post();
$current_post = get_post($post->ID);
$post_excerpts[$counter] = apply_filters('get_the_excerpt', $current_post->post_excerpt);
$post_titles[$counter] = get_the_title($post->ID);
$post_permalinks[$counter] = get_the_permalink($post->ID);
$post_thumbs[$counter] = get_the_post_thumbnail($post->ID, '', array('class' => 'img-fluid'));
$counter++;
endwhile; ?>
Just as an additional info, you could also use only the filters, should work with your post object:
$post_titles[$counter] = apply_filters('the_title',$current_post->post_title);
EDIT:
You can trim your excerpt to a certain length with mb_strimwidth (read more: https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.mb-strimwidth.php) :
$current_post = get_post($post->ID);
$trim_excerpt = apply_filters('get_the_excerpt', $current_post->post_excerpt);
$post_excerpts[$counter] = mb_strimwidth($trim_excerpt, 0, 40, '...');
EDIT 2:
Maybe you should check if you are getting your post object. The fact that you are always seeing the same excerpt, maybe means you get the excerpt of the current page (not the post in your query).
$current_id = get_the_id();
$current_post = get_post($current_id);