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In the wordpress settings => Reading => Blog pages show at most [input field] posts

I have it set to 3 posts at the moment.

On my index, date archives, tag archives, category archives, search results, etc... All pages that use the loop and paging, it shows 3 posts per page now.

My goal is to be able to have different number of results for different pages. ON my index maybe have 3 posts but on search results or archives, show a different number of results per page.

Any ideas how to do this?

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3 Answers 3

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30

This will do it: (add to your theme's functions.php)

add_action( 'pre_get_posts',  'set_posts_per_page'  );
function set_posts_per_page( $query ) {

  global $wp_the_query;

  if ( ( ! is_admin() ) && ( $query === $wp_the_query ) && ( $query->is_search() ) ) {
    $query->set( 'posts_per_page', 3 );
  }
  elseif ( ( ! is_admin() ) && ( $query === $wp_the_query ) && ( $query->is_archive() ) ) {
    $query->set( 'posts_per_page', 5 );
  }
  // Etc..

  return $query;
}
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4
  • Is set a method of $query?
    – Rutwick Gangurde
    Oct 11, 2011 at 4:34
  • @RutwickGangurde Yes. In fact, is_search() and is_archive() are too, which is now a little more clear after updating my answer with info gleaned from this great post: billerickson.net/customize-the-wordpress-query That article also notes that we'll have the $wp_query->is_main_query() method in WP3.3, which is pretty cool.
    – Dave Romsey
    Oct 11, 2011 at 5:10
  • Awesome man! Thanks a lot for the great post. I never knew these methods, and I used to drill down the object / array to change / set values. Good for on the fly hacks! +1 for you!
    – Rutwick Gangurde
    Oct 11, 2011 at 5:20
  • Since when was it necessary to never change it if is_admin dashboard? Looks like it doesn't sync the "Number of items per page:" in screen options in WP possibly resulting in pages you can't page to.
    – NoBugs
    Jan 18, 2016 at 23:03
0

Improving on the answer above: hook pre_get_posts is fetched by reference, thus it does not require a global call or a returncall.

add_action( 'pre_get_posts',  'set_posts_per_page'  );
function set_posts_per_page( $query ) {

  if ( ( ! is_admin() ) && ( $query === $wp_the_query ) && ( $query->is_search() ) ) {
    $query->set( 'posts_per_page', 3 );
  }
  elseif ( ( ! is_admin() ) && ( $query === $wp_the_query ) && ( $query->is_archive() ) ) {
    $query->set( 'posts_per_page', 5 );
  }
  // Etc..

}
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1
  • There is a problem with your code too as using the global $wp_query will resort into memory wastage but you can't call undefined various $wp_the_query
    – Abdulkabir Ojulari
    Sep 16, 2019 at 20:28
0

Using $GLOBALS['wp_query'] or just $wp_query

add_action( 'pre_get_posts',  'set_posts_per_page'  );
function set_posts_per_page( $query ) {

  if ( ( ! is_admin() ) && ( $query === $GLOBALS['wp_query'] ) && ( $query->is_search() ) ) {
    $query->set( 'posts_per_page', 3 );
  }
  elseif ( ( ! is_admin() ) && ( $query === $GLOBALS['wp_the_query'] ) && ( $query->is_archive() ) ) {
    $query->set( 'posts_per_page', 5 );
  }

  return $query;
}
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