I'm having an issue with my Category template. With a number of categories it's echoing posts that aren't in the category in question. I've checked the posts and categories in my WPAdmin dashboard, they're correct; the problem lies with my code.
Side note: this loop always returns every post in the category, and then some. So it's not missing any, it's just including some that don't belong.
<?php
$categories = get_the_category(); $category_id = $categories[0]->cat_ID;
// the query
$wpb_all_query = new WP_Query(array('post_type'=>'post', 'post_status'=>'publish', 'posts_per_page'=>-1, 'cat' => $category_id )); ?>
<?php if ( $wpb_all_query->have_posts() and !empty($category_id) ) : ?>
<!-- the loop -->
<?php while ( $wpb_all_query->have_posts() ) : $wpb_all_query->the_post(); ?>
<div>
<h2><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
<p><br/><?php echo get_the_date('l, F j, Y'); _e(' by ');?><a href="<?php echo home_url(); ?>/author/<?php echo the_author_meta('nicename'); ?>"><?php echo get_author_name(); ?></a></p>
<p><br/><?php _e('Categories: '); echo the_category( '/' ); ?></p>
<?php if ( has_post_thumbnail() ) {the_post_thumbnail();} ?>
<span><?php echo apply_filters( 'the_content', wp_trim_words( strip_tags( $post->post_content ), 55 ) ); ?><br/><a href="<?php echo the_permalink();?>">Continue Reading ></a></span>
<p><br/><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></p>
<p><?php echo get_the_date('l, F j, Y'); _e(' by ');?><a href="<?php echo home_url(); ?>/author/<?php echo the_author_meta('nicename'); ?>"><?php echo get_author_name(); ?></a></p>
</div>
<?php endwhile; ?>
<!-- end of the loop -->
<?php wp_reset_postdata(); ?>
<?php else : ?>
<p><?php _e( 'Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.' ); ?></p>
<?php endif; ?>
Alright, I have the solution. I was getting the post outside the loop, so it was defaulting to the first post. Most posts on this blog have multiple categories, and the ordering wasn't always listing the desired category first. This solution guarantees the category is grabbed based on the page loaded, rather than just the first category of the post:
<?php
$url = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
preg_match('/\/category\/(.+)\/.*/', $url, $matches);
$category_slug = $matches[1];
$category_id_actual = get_category_by_slug($category_slug)->term_id;
// the query
$wpb_all_query = new WP_Query(array('post_type'=>'post', 'post_status'=>'publish', 'posts_per_page'=>-1, 'cat' => $category_id_actual )); ?>
<?php if ( $wpb_all_query->have_posts() and !empty($category_id_actual) ) : ?>
<!-- the loop -->
<?php while ( $wpb_all_query->have_posts() ) : $wpb_all_query->the_post(); ?>
<div>
<h2><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
<p><br/><?php echo get_the_date('l, F j, Y'); _e(' by ');?><a href="<?php echo home_url(); ?>/author/<?php echo the_author_meta('nicename'); ?>"><?php echo get_author_name(); ?></a></p>
<p><br/><?php _e('Categories: '); echo the_category( '/' ); ?></p>
<?php if ( has_post_thumbnail() ) {the_post_thumbnail();} ?>
<span><?php echo apply_filters( 'the_content', wp_trim_words( strip_tags( $post->post_content ), 55 ) ); ?><br/><a href="<?php echo the_permalink();?>">Continue Reading ></a></span>
<p><br/><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></p>
<p><?php echo get_the_date('l, F j, Y'); _e(' by ');?><a href="<?php echo home_url(); ?>/author/<?php echo the_author_meta('nicename'); ?>" class="authorname"><?php echo get_author_name(); ?></a></p>
<div style="float:right;"></div>
</div>
<?php endwhile; ?>
<!-- end of the loop -->
<?php wp_reset_postdata(); ?>
<?php else : ?>
<p><?php _e( 'Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.' ); ?></p>
<?php endif; ?>