Output yearly archive within a page

Question

I've almost got what I want working from cobbling bits but I need a bit of help finishing it up. What I'm trying to do is output the following (for a custom post type) within a page template (not a separate archive page):

<ul class="accordion">
<li>
    <h3>2014</h3>
    <div>
        <p>12 September 2014</p>
        <a href="the_permalink>"Post title 1</a>
    </div>
    <div>
        <p>11 August 2014</p>
        <a href="the_permalink>"Post title 2</a>
    </div>
    <div>
        <p>10 May 2014</p>
        <a href="the_permalink>"Post title 3</a>
    </div>
</li>
<li>
    <h3>2013</h3>
    <div>
        <p>20 June 2013</p>
        <a href="the_permalink>"Post title 4</a>
    </div>
    <div>
        <p>19 April 2013</p>
        <a href="the_permalink>"Post title 5</a>
    </div>
    <div>
        <p>18 January 2013</p>
        <a href="the_permalink>"Post title 6</a>
    </div>
</ul>

The code I've got so far looks like this:

<?php
$years = $wpdb->get_results( "SELECT YEAR(post_date) AS year FROM wp_posts WHERE post_type = 'press-releases' AND post_status = 'publish' GROUP BY year DESC" );

foreach ( $years as $year ) {
    $posts_this_year = $wpdb->get_results( "SELECT post_title FROM wp_posts WHERE post_type = 'press-releases' AND post_status = 'publish' AND YEAR(post_date) = '" . $year->year . "'" );

    echo '<ul class="accordion">';
    echo '<li><h3>' . $year->year . '</h3>';
    foreach ( $posts_this_year as $post ) {
        echo '<div>' . $post->post_title . '</div>';
    }
    echo '</li>';
    echo '</ul>';
}
?>

Which is the basics of what I want. However, I also need to wrap the post title in the permalink and output the the date the post was published. I'm sure it's a simple fix but I don't know how to do it. Any ideas or is there a better way to do what I'm trying to achieve?

Any input appreciated, thanks!

Answer 1

You can just use a normal query to grab all posts (which are, by default, sorted date descending), and break them up as you loop over them:

<?php

$posts = new WP_Query(
    array(
        'posts_per_page' => -1,
        'post_type' => 'press-releases'
    )
);

if ( $posts->have_posts() ) : ?>

    <ul class="accordion"><?php

        while ( $posts->have_posts() ) : $posts->the_post();
            $year = get_the_time( 'Y' );

            if ( $posts->current_post === 0 )
                printf( '<li><h3>%s</h3>', $year ); // First post, always open the <li>
            elseif ( $last_year !== $year )
                printf( '</li><li><h3>%s</h3>', $year ); // Unlike above, close the previous open <li>

        ?>

            <div>
                <p><?php the_time( 'j F Y' ) ?></p>
                <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title() ?></a>
            </div>

        <?php           

            if ( ( $posts->current_post + 1 ) === $posts->post_count )
                echo '</li>'; // Always close the <li> at the end of the loop

            $last_year = $year;

        endwhile;

    ?></ul>

<?php endif ?>