Custom posts listing widget always returns 1 extra result

Question

I've built my own custom 'recent posts' widget to display some more content than the default core WP recent posts widget does. I'm struggling with controlling my list of entries. Currently, the widget always returns 1 additional post to the list selected. So if I select 1 post to show, it will actually show 2, and so forth. I'm not really sure where my code is going wrong:

// Run query to build posts listing
public function getPostsListings($numberOfListings,$showExcerpt,$showDate,$showFeatImage,$post_excerpt_length)
{
    $post_listings = new WP_Query();
    $post_listings->query('posts_per_page=' . $numberOfListings, 'ignore_sticky_posts' => 1);
    if ($post_listings->found_posts > 0) {
        echo '<ul class="posts_widget">';
        while ($post_listings->have_posts()) {
            $post_listings->the_post();
            $listItem = '<li>';
            if ( !empty($showFeatImage) && has_post_thumbnail() ) {
                $listItem .= '<img src="'.  get_the_post_thumbnail_url(get_the_ID(),'thumbnail') .'" />';
            }
            $listItem .= '<a href="' . get_permalink() . '">';
            $listItem .= get_the_title() . '</a>';
            if (!empty($showDate)) {
                $listItem .= '<span class="post-date"> Posted: ' . get_the_date() . '</span>';
            }
            if (!empty($showExcerpt)) {
                $listItem .= '<span class="post-excerpt">' .wp_trim_words( get_the_excerpt(), $post_excerpt_length). '</span>';
            }
            $listItem .= '</li>';
            echo $listItem;

        }
        echo '</ul>';
        wp_reset_postdata();
    } else {
        echo '<p>No posts were found</p>';
    }
}

Obviously there is more code to the widget than that, but I'm sparing it for the sake of brevity as I'm fairly sure my while loop is the core issue.

Answer 1

Anytime you call WP_Query, be sure to filter for only published posts. Also as a general guide, for any custom queries that you expect or could have more than one result for, try to always pass arguments for:

1. Publish status
2. Limit / number of results
3. Field to sort by
4. Sort order

Refer to the codex page (https://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_Query) for a full list of arguments you can pass.

Answer 2

As @jacob and @Sneha mentioned earlier in comments - my issue was with sticky posts not counting towards 'posts_per_page. My updated code is below:

// Run query to build posts listing
public function getPostsListings($numberOfListings,$showExcerpt,$showDate,$showFeatImage,$post_excerpt_length)
{
    global $post;
    $args = array( 'numberposts' => $numberOfListings, 'ignore_sticky_posts' => 1);
    $recent_posts = get_posts( $args );
    if ( have_posts() ) {
        echo '<ul class="posts_widget">';
        foreach( $recent_posts as $post ) : setup_postdata($post);
            setup_postdata($post);
            $listItem = '<li>';
            if ( !empty($showFeatImage) && has_post_thumbnail() ) {
                $listItem .= '<img src="'.  get_the_post_thumbnail_url(get_the_ID(),'thumbnail') .'" />';
            }
            $listItem .= '<a href="' . get_permalink() . '">';
            $listItem .= get_the_title() . '</a>';
            if (!empty($showDate)) {
                $listItem .= '<span class="post-date"> Posted: ' . get_the_date() . '</span>';
            }
            if (!empty($showExcerpt)) {
                $listItem .= '<span class="post-excerpt">' .wp_trim_words( get_the_excerpt(), $post_excerpt_length). '</span>';
            }
            $listItem .= '</li>';
            echo $listItem;
        endforeach;
        echo '</ul>';
        wp_reset_postdata();
    } else {
        echo '<p>No posts were found</p>';
    }
}

I did manage to solve it another alternative way by re appropriating code examples from here: https://themefuse.com/how-to-create-a-recent-posts-wordpress-plugin/