Why only one post (and no pagination) on this variation of the loop?

Question

This is my WP loop:

// fetch latest news stories
$paged = (get_query_var('page')) ? get_query_var('page') : 1;
$posts = get_posts(array(
    'numberposts' => 3,
    'paged' => $paged,
));

// show results
if ( have_posts() ) {
    while ( have_posts() ) {
        the_post(); 
        // display info about the post
    }
}

Here's the problem: only the first post is showing, and the pagination isn't showing at all.

Interestingly, I use the same code (from // show results down, since Wordpress sets up the posts to display for search results automatically) to display the results on my search page, and it works perfectly.

I'd like to use this same display code (again, from // show results down) on all my blog-related archive pages: date archives, main blog page, tag-based archive, etc.

I just need it to show more than one post and let my pagination show...

Answer 1

get_posts returns an array of post objects. You cannot loop over that using WP_Query object methods. Even if you could, your loop will use the data in the global variable $wp_query as you did not tell it to do anything different. And showposts is long since deprecated. In other words, your code is broken or flawed in several different ways.

You could use foreach to loop over your array.

$paged = (get_query_var('page')) ? get_query_var('page') : 1;
$posts = get_posts(array(
    'numberposts' => 3,
    'paged' => $paged,
));
// show results
foreach ($posts as $p) {
  echo $p->post_title;
}

You could clobber the global $wp_query object.

$paged = (get_query_var('page')) ? get_query_var('page') : 1;
$wp_query = new WP_Query(array(
    'numberposts' => 3,
    'paged' => $paged,
));
// show results
if ( have_posts() ) {
    while ( have_posts() ) {
        the_post(); 
        the_title();
        // display info about the post
    }
}

Or create a new WP_Query object:

$paged = (get_query_var('page')) ? get_query_var('page') : 1;
$my_query = new WP_Query(array(
    'numberposts' => 3,
    'paged' => $paged,
));
// show results
if ( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
    while ( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
        $my_query->the_post(); 
        the_title();
        // display info about the post
    }
}

Or, maybe, create a filter on pre_get_posts to alter the main query. If you want pagination to work, that is your best bet.

add_action(
  'pre_get_posts',
  function($qry) {
    if ($qry->is_main_query()) {
      $qry->set('posts_per_page',3);
    }
  }
);