Variable not being passed into WordPress loop

Question

In my WordPress custom post type loop only want to pull in from three posts 5171, 5167 and 5165.

If I do:

'post__in' => array(5171,5167,5165),

The loop outputs the values for those three correctly.

If I do:

'post__in' => array($my_share),

It only outputs the values for 5171. However $my_share equals 5171,5167,5165. If I do echo $my_share it also shows 5171,5167,5165.

Is there any obvious reason why $my_share is only passing the first value into the post__in array or anyway around that issue?

Answer 1

If $my_share echoes as "5171,5167,5165" then it is a string not an array...

In other words array($string) does not equal array(integer,integer,integer) even if $string equals "integer,integer,integer" because array treats $string as a single value with further values separated by commas.

You could use post__in => explode(",", $my_share), to convert the string into an array while passing it... otherwise you could try just using post__in => $my_share, and it might be converted into an array for you (but not sure without delving deep into the code to look.)