Re-sort get_posts query results

Question

I have a query that pulls fields from the 3 most recent posts for a carousel:

get_posts('posts_per_page=3')

I need to re-order the results so that instead of it being

1, 2, 3

it is

3, 1, 2.

Any ideas on how to do this?

Answer 1

Reordering the way you want is really pretty trivial. Proof of concept:

$p = array(1,2,3);
var_dump($p);

array_push($p,array_shift($p));
var_dump($p);

With the WordPress code:

$p = get_posts('posts_per_page=3');
array_push($p,array_shift($p));
var_dump($p);

To make it more interesting, you can do the same with a filter. Since get_posts() uses wp_query() you can use the post_results hook to reorder the results.

function post_shift_wpse_166761($p) {
  remove_filter('posts_results','post_shift_wpse_166761');
  array_push($p,array_shift($p));
  return $p;
}
add_filter('posts_results','post_shift_wpse_166761');

$p = get_posts(
  array(
    'suppress_filters' => false,
    'posts_per_page' => 3
  )
);
var_dump(wp_list_pluck($p,'ID'));

Note that you also have to pass a suppress_filters argument to get_posts().

Answer 2

I don't think WordPress offers any way to order posts as you like. It has ASC and DESC order to list posts.

But you can create a custom field for each carousel post to define carousel item orders. Let's say if you created custom field named carousel-order and add numerical value to each post.

Then you can add custom order like this.

get_posts(
    array(
        'posts_per_page' => '3',
        'meta_key' => 'carousel-order',
        'orderby' => 'meta_value_num'
    )
);

Answer 3

Thanks for your ideas. I ended up creating two different queries for the carousel re-ordering using offset:

The first query displays the third most recent post:

$args = array( 'posts_per_page' => 1, 'offset'=> 2 );
$thirdPost = get_posts( $args );

and then spit the required fields into the first carousel slide div.

The next query grabs the first and second most recent posts:

$args2 = array( 'posts_per_page' => 2, 'offset'=> 0 );
$firstPosts = get_posts( $args2 );

and then using "for each" spits the required fields into the second and third carousel slide div.