The Excerpt gets page excerpt instead of most recent post excerpt

Question

See www.pinosalon.com, Recent Blog is the same as Welcome.

On the page-home.php template that is used as the home page I have the loop which simply displays the Welcome text.

A few lines down the template, outside the loop, I get recent posts and display the latest post with the_excerpt(). The title and read more link work, but the_excerpt grabs the content from the loop rather than from the most recent post.

After updating the code based on the solution suggested by another question, the excerpt is no longer displayed.

Here is the code I am using:

//Block displays the current page's content
<?php while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>
<h1><?php the_title(); ?></h1>
    <?php the_content(); ?>
<?php endwhile; ?>

//Block that should display the latest post
<?php
$args = array( 'numberposts' => '1','post_type' => 'post' );
$recent_posts = wp_get_recent_posts( $args );
foreach( $recent_posts as $recent ) : setup_postdata($recent);
    echo '<h3><a href="' . get_permalink($recent["ID"]) . '" title="Look '.esc_attr($recent["post_title"]).'" >' .   $recent["post_title"].'</a></h3>';
echo the_excerpt();
echo '<a href="' . get_permalink($recent["ID"]) . '" title="Look '.esc_attr($recent["post_title"]).'" >Read More</a>';
endforeach;
?>

Answer 1

Your problem is that you're using $recent_posts as your variable name. If setup_postdata() isn't working, then your the_excerpt() should return whatever the excerpt is of the current page.

From the setup_postdata() codex page:

You must pass a reference to the global $post variable, otherwise functions like the_title() don't work properly.

So change this:

$args = array( 'numberposts' => '1','post_type' => 'post' );
$recent_posts = wp_get_recent_posts( $args );
foreach( $recent_posts as $recent ) : setup_postdata($recent);

To this:

global $post;
$args = array( 'numberposts' => '1','post_type' => 'post' );
$recent_posts = wp_get_recent_posts( $args );
foreach( $recent_posts as $post ) : setup_postdata($post);

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Better yet, use WP_Query which is perfect for secondary loops!

$args = array( 'posts_per_page' => '1','post_type' => 'post' );
$recent_posts = new WP_Query( $args );
if( $recent_posts->have_posts() ) : while( $recent_posts->have_posts() ) : $recent_posts->the_post();

And replace endforeach; with endwhile; endif;

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Bonus best practice, never use page-{anything}.php for a template name as that's a reserved pattern in the template hierarchy. For a static front page, use front-page.php instead.)