How to check the array values, what WP_Query has brought to me?

Question

I have two questions in a row:

• How to check the array values, what WP_Query has brought to me?
• If I get 10 posts in cat=3, then I want to get only 5 from them, and then want to echo them individually wherever I want them to print.

It may be like:

-------------------
| 1  |  2         |
-------------------
| 3 | 4 |
-------------------
| 5 |
-------------------

But I don't have any idea on both of the problems.

Answer 1

Assuming you start with:

$custom_query_args = array( 
    'cat' => 10,
    'post_per_page' => 5
);

$custom_query = new WP_Query();

Then to answer your first question, you can see what is returned (for development/debugging) via:

var_dump( $custom_query );

To output your query as a normal loop, you simply need to call a custom loop, using the have_posts() and the_post() member functions of the Query class:

// Start loop
if ( $custom_query->have_posts() ) : while ( $custom_query->have_posts() ) : $custom_query->the_post();
    // Loop output goes here
// End loop
endwhile; endif;
// Restore $post data to the default query
wp_reset_postdata();

Answer 2

The posts retrieved from a query are stored in the variable named posts. You can read or modify that array as you wish. For example if the WP_Query object is $query, you can do $posts = $query->posts;

For your next question, just don't use the while & display them wherever you like

if(have_posts()) {
    the_post();
    the_title();
}

// some other code

if(have_posts()) {
    the_post();
    the_title();
}

the_post() sets the current post to the next post in the objects posts array. The rest is just pure php

Answer 3

Thanks all of you for your kind assistance.
We did it with a for loop like this:

<div id="lead_news">
<div id="lead_news_left">
<?php if ( have_posts() ) : ?>
<?php
$lead = new WP_Query( 'cat=3' );

// IT WILL ECHO POST NO. 1 HERE, ONLY
for ( $counter = 0; $counter <= 1; $counter += 1) {

$lead->the_post(); ?>

<?php get_template_part( 'content', get_post_format() );

$counter++;
}
?>
</div> <!-- #lead_news_left -->

<div id="lead_news_right">
<div id="lead"><strong>Other Lead News:</strong></div>

<ul id="lead_other">

<?php
// IT WILL ECHO POST NO. 2 to 6 HERE
for ( $counter = 1; $counter <= 6; $counter += 1) {

$lead->the_post(); ?>
<li>
<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="<?php printf( __('Permalink to %s', 'your-theme'), the_title_attribute('echo=0') ); ?>" rel="bookmark"><?php the_title(); ?></a>
</li>

<?php } ?>

</ul>  <!-- #lead_other -->

</div> <!-- #lead_news_right -->

</div> <!-- #lead_news -->

Then when my query ends, I ended it as usual with:

<?php
// Reset Post Data
wp_reset_postdata();
?>

And after everything, we ended with an <?php endif; ?>.

I agree that, It's not what I asked here, but it worked for me, and I can display posts wherever I want 'em to display. :)

It displays like:

----------------
POST 1 | POST 2
       | POST 3
       | POST 4
       | POST 5
       | POST 6
----------------

Thanks all of you again for your assistance and precious time.
Yap, CODE IS POETRY!