WordPress Post Looping? [duplicate]

Question

How do I avoid Post 11, Post 12" from 4th page of Pagination?

1. Total number of posts in my blog ( say 15 )
2. Maximum number of posts, I want to show ( say $max = 10)
3. Posts per page should be 3 only.

   $max = 10;  
   $items_per_page = 3;
   $paged = ( get_query_var('paged') > 0 ) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1;  
   $query = new WP_Query( array( 'posts_per_page' => $items_per_page  , 'paged' => $paged ) );  

   if( $query->have_posts() ) {  
    while( $query->have_posts() ) {  
     $query->the_post();  
     the_title();  
    }  
   }  

   $total = ceil( $max / $items_per_page );  // 4

   echo paginate_links( array( 'total' => $total ) );  

   wp_reset_postdata();  
   wp_reset_query();

output

Pagination

Page 1      : Post 1, Post 2, Post 3
Page 2      : Post 4, Post 5, Post 6
Page 3      : Post 7, Post 8, Post 9
Page 4      : Post 10, Post 11, Post 12 ==> should show only "Post 10"

Note

From my question, i want to show 10 posts only. paginate_links() generates 4 links.
site.com/page/1/ = shows P1, P2, P3
site.com/page/2/ = shows P4, P5, P6
site.com/page/3/ = shows P7, P8, P9
site.com/page/4/ = shows P10, P11, P12 => Here i need to avoid P11, P12

Answer 1

Interesting question. Wp_Query will return all posts that match the criteria. To enhance performance, you can switch off pagination with no_found_rows=true. You want both pagination and limit the amount of results returned. That's not something wp_query can deliver.

So the most obvious though not too elegant solution would be to modify your loop in the same way you modify your pagination to cut off the superfluous results:

while( $query->have_posts() ) {
   if (($wp_query->current_post) =< 10 ) {
      $query->the_post();
      the_title();
      }
  }

An alternative way would be to use wpdb and build your own mysql query. Or use no_found_rows and build your own pagination for the results.