get "read more" with custom DB query like you would with WP Query

Question

I am using a custom database query to fetch posts.

In the post I have a break tag, which is displayed as <!--more--> in the database wp_posts table, but I can't get it to output like I would if I used wp query. It is basically ignored.

i tried using apply_filters like so, but to no avail:

<?php echo apply_filters("the_content", $post->post_content); ?>

I don't get either the "read more" anchor or the "read more" span tag in the post's content.

How can I get it with my custom query?

Answer 1

The <!-- more --> tag isn't applied via the the_content filter, it's included in the get_the_content() function, which checks for the existence of the tag within the content using a regex and then outputs the more link appropriately. this output is filtered via the the_content_more_link filter, but since you're not using get_the_content() you won't be able to leverage that. you'll need to perform a similar regex replacement in our custom code. I would recommend filtering your more link via the_content_more_link as well, for compatibility. You can see the code get_the_content() uses here: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/4.0.1/src/wp-includes/post-template.php#L255