Unable to get post content from custom post type loop

Question

For some reason I am unable to output the custom post type content using the following code. what am I missing here? It works fine for get_the_title yet using get_the_content using same parameters yields nothing.

<?php
            $query = new WP_Query( ['post_type' => 'testimonials', 'posts_per_page' => -1 ] );
            foreach($query->get_posts() as $testimonial):
            $meta = get_post_meta($testimonial->ID);
            foreach($meta as &$m){
                if(is_array($m)){
                    $m = $m[0];
                }
            } ?>

            <div class="content"><?=get_the_content($testimonial->ID); ?></div>
            <div class="author">- <?=get_the_title($testimonial->ID); ?> / <span class="company_name"><?=$meta['_testimonial_company_name'] ?></span></div>
            <div class="link"><a href="<?=home_url('/testimonials'); ?>" title="View All Testimonials">View More</a></div>
            <?php endforeach; ?>

Answer 1

As other answers mentioned, you aren't in The Loop so get_the_*() functions aren't going to work properly. Since you're looping over $query->get_posts() you can just use the WP_Post object.

Something like this will work.

foreach($query->get_posts() as $testimonial):
    $meta = get_post_meta($testimonial->ID);
    foreach($meta as &$m){
            if(is_array($m)){
                $m = $m[0];
            }
        }

    <div class="content"><?= do_shortcode($testimonial->post_content); ?></div>
    <div class="author">- <?=$testimonial->post_title; ?> / <span class="company_name"><?=$meta['_testimonial_company_name'] ?></span></div>
    <div class="link"><a href="<?=home_url('/testimonials'); ?>" title="View All Testimonials">View More</a></div>            

<?php endforeach;?>

Depending on your specific situation you may want to wpautop() the content as well. E.g. do_shortcode(wpautop($testimonial->post_content))

If you want to setup a secondary loop, you can; however, you should NOT use setup_postdata() unless you are sure that you aren't working in a nested loop since that modifies the global post object.

Answer 2

get_the_content() must be used within a loop, and it requires you to set up the post's data.

You should use setup_postdata( $post ); first, and then you can use get_the_content().

However, I see a couple of issues here:

• First of all, you can use a loop, instead of foreach.
• You should never use short PHP tags. I'm surprised how your code runs at the first place.
• It's better to store your query parameters into an array for readability, and the pass it to WP_Query();.
• Use the_content() instead of get_the_content(), to make sure the filters are applied too.

Here is an optimized version of your code:

<?php
$args = array( 
    'post_type' => 'testimonials', 
    'posts_per_page' => 100
);
$q = new WP_Query( $args );
if ( $q->have_posts() ) {
    while ( $q->have_posts() ) {
        $q->the_post();
        $company_name = get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), '_testimonial_company_name', true );
        ?>
        <div class="content"><?php the_content(); ?></div>
        <div class="author">- <?php the_title(); ?> / <span class="company_name"><?php echo $company_name; ?></span></div>
        <div class="link"><a href="<?php echo home_url( '/testimonials' ); ?>" title="View All Testimonials">View More</a></div><?php
    }
}
?>