6

I have this code for the loop, and I need to exclude a category 4 from this loop. Any suggestions on how to achieve this?

Code that starts the loop

 <?php if(have_posts()): ?>

    <ol class="item_lists">

        <?php
        $end = array(3,6,9,12,15,18,21,24,27,30,33,36,39,42,45);
        $i = 0;

        while (have_posts()) : the_post();
           $i++;
           global $post;
 ?>

4 Answers 4

12

you could use wp_parse_args() to merge your arguments into the default query

// Define the default query args
global $wp_query;
$defaults = $wp_query->query_vars;

// Your custom args
$args = array('cat'=>-4);

// merge the default with your custom args
$args = wp_parse_args( $args, $defaults );

// query posts based on merged arguments
query_posts($args);

although, i think the more elegant route is using the pre_get_posts() action. this modifies the query before the query is made so that the query isn't run twice.

check out:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Custom_Queries#Category_Exclusion

based on that example to exclude category 4 from the index i'd put this in your functions.php:

add_action('pre_get_posts', 'wpa_44672' );

function wpa_44672( $wp_query ) {

    //$wp_query is passed by reference.  we don't need to return anything. whatever changes made inside this function will automatically effect the global variable

    $excluded = array(4);  //made it an array in case you  need to exclude more than one

    // only exclude on the home page
    if( is_home() ) {
        set_query_var('category__not_in', $excluded);
        //which is merely the more elegant way to write:
        //$wp_query->set('category__not_in', $excluded);
    }
}
4
  • Upvote to Helga as she mentioned pre_get_posts first. Sep 4, 2014 at 5:33
  • 1
    instead of 'category__not_in' or 'category__in', you could use 'cat' and use a string as value e.g. '2,-4'. this way, not only the specified category would be included/excluded, but also its children.
    – honk31
    Jun 6, 2019 at 14:01
  • 1
    You, ma'am, have committed a horrible crime. You should be ashamed of yourself! Function name "wpa_44672"? Really? :P
    – Ares
    Apr 25, 2020 at 21:42
  • Are you really trolling on a post from 8 years to make fun of the fact that I used a unique function name with almost 0% chance of conflicting with anything? Apr 27, 2020 at 14:18
5

From your functions file

function remove_home_category( $query ) {
    if ( $query->is_home() && $query->is_main_query() ) {
        $query->set( 'cat', '-4' );
    }
}
add_action( 'pre_get_posts', 'remove_home_category' );

This code alters the query before the actual query is run so is the most efficient hook to modify the loop in this case.

0
1

Before the line

<?php if(have_posts()): ?>

Insert something like this

<?php query_posts($query_string . '&cat=-4'); ?>

This excludes the category with Category ID 4. As seen here

3
  • it does in fact remove the posts from that category but it's a kind of a portfolio on the users page, and now the pagination is broken on page 3.
    – jimilesku
    Mar 6, 2012 at 23:50
  • I also have this custom made in the theme_setup.php: $newrules["user/({$author->nicename})/(portfolio)/?$"] = 'index.php?author_name=$matches[1]&baction=$matches[2]'; $newrules["user/({$author->nicename})/(portfolio)/page/?([0-9]+)/?$"] = 'index.php?author_name=$matches[1]&baction=$matches[2]&paged=$matches[3]';
    – jimilesku
    Mar 6, 2012 at 23:51
  • the pagination appears, and I can click it, but the page 2 ahs the same posts as page 1, and page 3 shows 404 error? Pls help :)
    – jimilesku
    Mar 7, 2012 at 0:05
1

Adam is right. In addition, for pagination to work, you need to have something more like so:

<?php query_posts('post_type=post&paged='.$paged.'&cat=-4');  ?>

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