How to show year/month archive including months with no posts

Question

I found a partial answer at: http://floatleft.com/notebook/wordpress-year-month-archives/

This solution shows all months that have posts. Its not even that much code:

<?php
        $year_prev = null;
        $months = $wpdb->get_results(   "SELECT DISTINCT MONTH( post_date ) AS month ,
                                        YEAR( post_date ) AS year,
                                        COUNT( id ) as post_count FROM $wpdb->posts
                                        WHERE post_status = 'publish' and post_date <= now( )
                                        and post_type = 'post'
                                        GROUP BY month , year
                                        ORDER BY post_date DESC");
        foreach($months as $month) :
            $year_current = $month->year;
            if ($year_current != $year_prev){
                if ($year_prev != null){?>
                </ul>
                <?php } ?>
            <h3><?php echo $month->year; ?></h3>
            <ul class="archive-list">
            <?php } ?>
            <li>
                <a href="<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/<?php echo $month->year; ?>/<?php echo date("m", mktime(0, 0, 0, $month->month, 1, $month->year)) ?>">
                    <span class="archive-month"><?php echo date("F", mktime(0, 0, 0, $month->month, 1, $month->year)) ?></span>
                </a>
            </li>
        <?php $year_prev = $year_current;
        endforeach; ?>
        </ul>

My problem is that the designer added all the months, not just the ones that have posts. How could I edit this to show all months, not just the ones with posts. I am using 3.8.1

thanks

Answer 1

The code below will loop through everywhere year and check to see if each month has posts. If so, it will add a link to the month. If not, it will just print the month without a link. You will need to edit the actual link as I am not sure about your websites' permalink structure.

//Grab the earliest year available
    $yearliest_year = $wpdb->get_results(

        "SELECT YEAR(post_date) AS year 
         FROM $wpdb->posts 
         WHERE post_status = 'publish' 
         AND post_type = 'post'
         ORDER BY post_date 
         ASC LIMIT 1

    ");


    //If there are any posts
    if($yearliest_year){

        //This year
        $this_year = date('Y');

        //Setup months
        $months = array(1 => "January", 2 => "February", 3 => "March" , 4 => "April", 5 => "May", 6 => "June", 7 => "July", 8 => "August", 9 => "September", 10 => "October", 11 => "November", 12 => "December");

        $current_year = $yearliest_year[0]->year;


        //Loop through every year and check each monnth of each year for posts
        while($current_year <= $this_year){

            echo "<h3>" . $current_year . "</h3>";

            echo "<ul>";

            foreach($months as $month_num => $month){


                //Checks to see if a month a has posts
                if($search_month = $wpdb->query(

                        "SELECT MONTHNAME(post_date) as month 

                            FROM $wpdb->posts  
                            WHERE MONTHNAME(post_date) = '$month'
                            AND YEAR(post_date) = $current_year 
                            AND post_type = 'post'
                            AND post_status = 'publish'
                            LIMIT 1 

                ")){

                    //Month has post -> link it
                    echo "<li>

                            <a href='" . get_bloginfo('url') . "/" . $current_year . "/" . $month_num . "/'><span class='archive-month'>" . $month . "</span></a>

                          </li>";


                }else{

                    //Month does not have post -> just print it

                    echo "<li>

                            <span class='archive-month'>" . $month . "</span>

                          </li>";
                }



            }

            echo "</ul>";

            $current_year++;


        }

    }else{

        echo "No Posts Found.";

    }

Answer 2

One solution would be to add the missing months. You have check if all the months of a existent year is present. If not, you add that month with post_count zero.

<?php
        $year_prev = null;
        $months = $wpdb->get_results(   "SELECT DISTINCT MONTH( post_date ) AS month ,
                                        YEAR( post_date ) AS year,
                                        COUNT( id ) as post_count FROM $wpdb->posts
                                        WHERE post_status = 'publish' and post_date <= now( )
                                        and post_type = 'post'
                                        GROUP BY month , year
                                        ORDER BY post_date DESC");

        function month_exist($month, $year, $objects){
            foreach($objects as $object){
                if( ($object->month == $month) && ($object->year == $year) )
                return true;
            }
            return false;
        }

        $all_month = range(1,12);
        $new_array = $months;
        $i = 0;
        foreach($months as $month){
            $year_current = $month->year;
            if( $year_current != $year_prev ){
                foreach( $all_month as $current_month ){
                    if( !month_exist($current_month, $month->year, $months)){
                        $value = new StdClass();
                        $value->month = $current_month;
                        $value->year = $month->year;
                        $value->post_count = 0;
                        array_splice($new_array, $i*12+($current_month-1), 0, array($value));
                    }
                }
                $i++;
            }
            $year_prev = $month->year;
        }

        $months = $new_array;
        $year_prev = null;
        foreach($months as $month) :
            $year_current = $month->year;
            if ($year_current != $year_prev){
                if ($year_prev != null){?>
                </ul>
                <?php } ?>
            <h3><?php echo $month->year; ?></h3>
            <ul class="archive-list">
            <?php } ?>
            <li>
                <a href="<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/<?php echo $month->year; ?>/<?php echo date("m", mktime(0, 0, 0, $month->month, 1, $month->year)) ?>">
                    <span class="archive-month"><?php echo date("F", mktime(0, 0, 0, $month->month, 1, $month->year)) ?></span>
                </a>
            </li>
        <?php $year_prev = $year_current;
        endforeach; ?>
        </ul>