Why is get_the_excerpt returning full content

Question

I have my home page set to a static page with a custom page template. Here I want to show posts, but just the excerpts with a "Read more" link. I want to use the more tag, which is a part of wordpress so I hate the fact that this doesn't work! If I simplify the code that would be it:

while ( $q->have_posts() ) : $q->the_post();
    $the_exc = get_the_excerpt();
    echo $the_exc;
endwhile;

So how do I convince wordpress that on my home page I just want to show the excerpts (until the more tag). And this is like 75th time I'm dealing with this the_excerpt, the_content, issue. How do you guys do this?

Answer 1

Based on this...

... I just want to show the excerpts (until the more tag).

... it sounds like what you want is to show the post content up to the <!--more--> tag, rather than the excerpt proper which is hand-written into a special field. To do that, you need to use the_content()/get_the_content() rather than the excerpt cousin functions, and you need to have the global variable $more set correctly, but that is not hard to do.

$q = new WP_Query(array('post_type'=>'post'));

global $more;

while ( $q->have_posts() ) {
  $q->the_post();
  $more = 0;
  $the_exc = get_the_content();
  echo $the_exc;
}

The technique is explained in the Codex.