WordPress post views from the_views as a variable - php

I am using the WordPress plugin WP-PostViews to display the number of views a post has. I am using this code and it works great:
<?php if(function_exists('the_views')) { the_views(); }?>
The thing I want to do is to use this number of post views as a variable but I can't get it working. So far I have tried:
<?php if(function_exists('the_views')) { $variable = the_views(); } ?>
and
<?php if(function_exists('the_views')) { $variable = the_views(); } else { $var = 0; } ?>
No success so far. Does anyone have suggestions?

By default the_views() echos instead of returns. You can get a return by setting the first argument to false. Example:
<?php if(function_exists('the_views')) { $variable = the_views(false); } ?>

Related

If session has value echo it else echo "all"

Update 2
I'll just leave this here for future references. But this is the solution I created with all the help I got here. Thanks!
<script>
function Refresh() {
location.reload();
}
</script>
<?php $number = $_SESSION["page_id"]; ?>
<?php
if (isset($_SESSION['page_id']) && !empty($_SESSION['page_id'])) {
echo do_shortcode('[RICH_REVIEWS_SHOW category="page" num="all" id="'. $number .'"]');
session_destroy();
echo ('<button class="btn btn-0001" onclick="Refresh()">Show All</button>');
}
else{ echo do_shortcode('[RICH_REVIEWS_SHOW num="all"]'); }
;
?>
Update
So I'm trying to just do a simple echo to see if the session is set using this code:
<?php if(isset($_SESSION['page_id']) && !empty($_SESSION['page_id'])) {
echo 'Set and not empty, and no undefined index error!');
};?>
But doing this breaks my page, I just get a blank page? How do I check if the session is set? When I do a echo of the session using this code:
<?php echo $_SESSION["page_id"]; ?>
It does output the correct session value?? What am I doing wrong?
I have a sessions saved with PHP and I'm using this so that the page ID from Wordpress is echo-ed in a shortcode do_shortcode('');
This is what my code looks like:
<?php $number = $_SESSION["page_id"]; ?>
<?php echo do_shortcode('[RICH_REVIEWS_SHOW category="page" num="all" id="'. $number .'"]'); ?>
<?php echo do_shortcode_all('[RICH_REVIEWS_SHOW category="page" num="all" id="all"]'); ?>
<?php echo $shortcode ;?>
<?php echo $shortcode_all ;?>
Now, what I would like to do is IF the page_id is not stored in the session it should echo all. So how do I go about this?
I found this code, and I think its something I need... But I'm not that great a programmer/coder...
<?php
$var = 0;
// Evaluates to true because $var is empty
if (empty($var)) {
echo '$var is either 0, empty, or not set at all';
}
// Evaluates as true because $var is set
if (isset($var)) {
echo '$var is set even though it is empty';
}
?>
So, if I where to put these two together I would get something like this
<?php
$number = $_SESSION["page_id"];
// Evaluates to true because $var is empty
if (empty($number)) {
echo $shortcode_all ;
}
// Evaluates as true because $var is set
if (isset($number)) {
echo $shortcode ;
}
?>
Am I in the right direction?
Solution
<?php
if (isset($_SESSION['page_id']) && !empty($_SESSION['page_id'])) {
echo('Set and not empty, and no undefined index error!');
};
?>
What am I supposed to feel from the missing (?
If you are using wordpress then you should use the session_start(); in wp-config.php file so please first put in you wp-config.php at top and then check.
<?php
$number = $_SESSION["page_id"];
// Evaluates to true because $var is empty
if (empty($number) || $number=='') {
echo $shortcode_all ;
}else{
echo $shortcode ;
}
?>

If variable is link, echo link

I having issues getting a function to echo, where $lightbox_link1 = get_custom_field('lightbox_link1'). I'm fairly new to PHP.
Below is the defining function:
// Check for a lightbox link, if it exists, use that as the value.
// If it doesn't, use the featured image URL from above.
if(get_custom_field('lightbox_link1')) {
$lightbox_link1 = get_custom_field('lightbox_link1');
} else {
$lightbox_link1 = $image_full[0];
}
Echo Function:
<?php if ($lightbox_link1 = get_custom_field('lightbox_link1')) {
echo '';
} ?>
<?php if ($lightbox_link1 = get_custom_field('lightbox_link1')) {
should be
<?php if ($lightbox_link1 == get_custom_field('lightbox_link1')) {
= is used for assignment
== is used for comparison
=== is used for typesafe comparison
also you can't declare <?php ... ?> inside another <?php ... ?>
to get something like <?php ... <?php ... ?> ... ?>
take a look at what you did up to here:
<?php if ($lightbox_link1 = get_custom_field('lightbox_link1')) {
echo '<a href="<?php
Instead, using doublequotes in your echo statement will allow for the php variables inside to be parsed, so you could just do
echo "<a href='{$lightbox_link1}' data-rel='prettyPhoto[{$post_slug}]'></a>";
to get
<?php if ($lightbox_link1 == get_custom_field('lightbox_link1')) {
echo "<a href='{$lightbox_link1}' data-rel='prettyPhoto[{$post_slug}]'></a>";
} ?>

Getting a conditional message out of a foreach loop

I'm displaying all the posts in the category that have a valid date as follows -
<?php $blog = $pages->find('posts');
foreach($blog->children() as $blogpost): ?>
<?php if ($blogpost->title() <= $latest && $blogpost->category == $thisCat): ?>
//HTML for displaying post goes here
<?php endif ?>
<?php end foreach ?>
That works fine when those posts validate my condition, and displays nothing if it doesn't. What I want to do is display an error message (like 'there are no posts here') when there are no posts that pass the condition. I can't just do a simple else condition in that if query because it's inside the foreach loop. I can't take the if query out of the foreach loop because it relies on a variable that is defined as part of it ($blogpost).
Kind of stuck in this catch 22... Any suggestions?
How about...
<?php
$blog = $pages->find('posts');
$found_something = false;
foreach($blog->children() as $blogpost) {
if ($blogpost->title() <= $latest && $blogpost->category == $thisCat) {
$found_something = true;
//HTML for displaying post goes here
}
}
if(!$found_something) {
// display error message
}
?>
By the way, is there a specific reason why you're using the alternative PHP syntax?
I'd create a counter variable which increments each time when you display a post.
<?php $blog = $pages->find('posts');
$displayedPosts = 0;
foreach($blog->children() as $blogpost): ?>
<?php if ($blogpost->title() <= $latest && $blogpost->category == $thisCat):
$displayedPosts++; ?>
//HTML for displaying post goes here
<?php endif ?>
<?php end foreach ?>
<?php
if ($displayedPosts == 0) {
echo 'ERROR!';
}
?>
Using a boolean variable (as tmh did) is probably better in this case unless you want to count the posts.
Just count your posts , if it's 0 display just the message , else execute foreach loop :
<?php $blog = $pages->find('posts');
if(count($blog->children())==0){ echo 'No post Here'; }
else{
foreach($blog->children() as $blogpost): ?>
<?php if ($blogpost->title() <= $latest && $blogpost->category == $thisCat): ?>
//HTML for displaying post goes here
<?php endif ?>
<?php end foreach ?>
<?php } ?>

How can I use a "variable" in an if/or statement in PHP to generate a statement conditionally?

I have zero experience with PHP. I run a wordpress site, and am trying to make one simple modification to the code. This is what I have:
<?php
if(<?php the_author() ?> == "Joe Man")
{
<?php the_author() ?>
}
?>
I believe all variables start with a $, so what I have above in my if statement is not a variable. What do I do? I also tried creating a variable, as below:
<?php
$author = <?php the_author() ?>
if($author == "Joe Man")
{
<?php the_author() ?>
}
?>
Neither of the above worked. So my question is how can I get that if statement to evaluate? What I need is if the_author is "Joe Man", for the string "Joe Man" to display on my page.
This is the error I get btw:
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '<'
Thanks!
You may not nest <?php ?> tags. The correct code would be:
<?php
$author = get_the_author();
if ($author == "Joe Man") {
echo $author;
}
?>
Actually, the variable could be skipped altogether, shortening the code to:
<?php
if (get_the_author() == "Joe Man") {
the_author();
}
?>
Note the echo to print out the author.
Looks like you're using wordpress, so beyond your PHP-in-PHP error, your code wouldn't work anyways, as both the_author() calls will simply OUTPUT the data, instead of returning it for comparison. You'd want:
$author = get_the_author();
if ($author == "Joe Man") {
echo $author;
}
instead. As a general rule, any function in Wordpress which does output has a get_...() variant which returns instead of outputting.
If the author is "Joe Man", output the author:
<?php
$author = the_author();
if($author == "Joe Man") {
echo $author;
}
?>

If-statement: how to pull 2nd GET variable

How do I get this to pull my 2nd variable? (I already have a switch setup)
<body id="<?php if (! isset($_GET['page'])) { echo "home"; } else { $_GET['page']; echo $page; } ?>">
I have a switch statement that pulls the pages from
index.php?page=#####
and I have just added this part to my switch:
index.php?page=####&section=#####
Right now, if I am on page=photos, my code ends up being:
<body id="photos">
I need to make it so that if any link has the "sections" variable on it like this page=photos&section=cars it uses the same ID:
<body id="photos">
First of all, a HTML element can only have one id. So if you want to create a hybrid (e.g. page-section) you can do something like this:
<body id="<?php echo isset($_GET['page']) ? $_GET['page'] : "home"; echo isset($_GET['section']) ? ("-".$_GET['section']) : ''; ?>">
For more information on Ternary Operators in PHP (the ? and : I used in the echo statement) see http://php.net/manual/en/language.operators.comparison.php
I am not entirely sure I understand your question, but where you're doing:
$_GET['page']; echo $page;
What do you think is happening? You're echoing a variable that has no definition. If you want to echo the value passed in the url, just do:
echo $_GET['page'];
GET doesnt mean your getting the varible, its the method by which the variable was passed to he page. The possible methods are get (in the url) or post (not).
Wouldn't that be an if to find out it if the section was defined? i.e.
if(isset($_GET['section'])){
//create div
} elseif(isset($_GET['page']){
//create fallback div
}
Move the PHP code outside the body's id attribute for readability, and use else if. Make sure your code isn't vulnerable to injection by sanitizing or validating input from $_GET. For example:
<?php
function isValidID($x) {
return preg_match('/^[A-Z][-_.A-Za-z0-9]$/i', $x);
}
if (isset($_GET['section']) && isValidID($_GET['section'])) {
$bodyID = $_GET['section'];
} else if (isset($_GET['page']) && isValidID($_GET['page'])) {
$bodyID = $_GET['page'];
} else {
$bodyID = 'home';
}
?>
...
<body id="<?php echo $bodyID; ?>">
Alternatively,
<?php
function isValidID($x) {
return preg_match('/^[A-Z][-_.A-Za-z0-9]$/i', $x);
}
$bodyID='home';
foreach (array('section', 'home') as $key) {
if (isset($_GET[$key]) && isValidID($_GET[$key])) {
$bodyID = $_GET[$key];
break;
}
}
?>
...
<body id="<?php echo $bodyID; ?>">
In this case, I'd use the first, unrolled version. If you had to check more input keys, use the loop-based approach.
If you decide you want both page & section in the ID, you can try something like:
<?php
function isValidID($x) {
return preg_match('/^[A-Z][-_.A-Za-z0-9]$/i', $x);
}
if (isset($_GET['page']) && isValidID($_GET['page'])) {
$bodyID = $_GET['page'];
} else {
$bodyID = 'home';
}
if (isset($_GET['section']) && isValidID($_GET['section'])) {
$bodyID .= '_' . $_GET['section'];
}
?>
...
<body id="<?php echo $bodyID; ?>">

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