Why the_excerpt() function returns excerpt on the Home page and trimmed content in sidebar?

Question

I have this code to display 4 posts of type "testimonial" on the Home page:

<?php
            $custom_posts = get_posts([
                'numberposts' => 4,
                'post_type' => 'testimonial'
            ]);
            ?>

            <?php foreach ($custom_posts as $post) : setup_postdata($post); ?>

                <article>
                    <?php the_excerpt(); ?>

                    <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">Continue reading</a>

                    <p><?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'pacient', TRUE); ?></p>
                </article>

            <?php endforeach; ?>

This works as expected. Excerpts are shown. Sunshine rainbows. Unfortunately if I move exactly the same code to the sidebar on other side no excerpts are shown. There is content trimmed down for each post instead.

In other words: This exact same code (copy/pasted) on home page produces excerpts. In the sidebar on other page it produces trimmed content with "[...]" at the end. I have no clue why. Can the problem be related to where the get_post function is called (after Query or something).

Why this function behaves differently in both cases? How do I force it to show excerpt only and not the post content. Am I missing something?

Answer 1

Your problem has nothing to do with the_excerpt(). the_excerpt() template tag does not change its behavior by itself or change its behavior according to location. The only time the_excerpt() changes its behavior is when you manually filter the output through a custom function.

I most probably think that all of your misery is caused by neglet :-). Neglet to what you may ask, and the simple answer is, negletting clean up after yourself when you done, ie resetting your postdata once you've done with your custom query

Many people neglet this unmost important function wp_reset_postdata. This is a gloden rule, always always, whenever you create a custom query with either get_posts or WP_Query, you have to reset your query, otherwise every other query afterwards will be affected negatively.

So, I think by resetting your postdata after your custom query (add wp_reset_postdata just after endforeach), everything will be fine

Just a point of note, don't use : and endforeach. It makes code difficult to read and to debug, and code editors can't read this as well. To make things easier in the future, rather use curly brackets ({})