How to shorten code with function?

Question

Now on the front page, in the part with post excerptions I have such a code:

<div class="wiadPodtyt">
<ul>
<?php 
$piwa = get_posts( 
array(
    'posts_per_page' => 2,
    'cat'  => 81,
    'post__not_in'   => $news_ids,
'offset' => 1
)
);
foreach ( $piwa as $post ) {
setup_postdata( $post );
?>
<li><a href='<?php the_permalink(); ?>' class="subtytulyWiad"><?php the_title();   ?></a>   </li>

It's used to avoid double posts, because in other place i show the newest posts from mostly all categories. I'd like to shorten this code, because i repeat it some times (in div class wiadPodtyt). The problem is this function is changed with such variables like number of posts (posts_per_page) and category id (cat). How to write it corectly?

Update

In response to @totels, I tried this:

function print_alko($allpost=8, $postpage=1, $postcat=81)
{
$news = get_posts( 
array(
     'posts_per_page' => $allpost,
     'cat' => -88
    )
);
// Get an array with just the IDs of the posts in the $fruit array
$news_ids = wp_list_pluck( $news, 'ID' ); 
//'post__not_in'   => $news_ids powinno by? po cat=>...
$piwo = get_posts( 
array(
    'posts_per_page' => $postpage,
    'cat'  => $postcat,
    'post__not_in'   => $news_ids
)
);
foreach ( $piwo as $post ) {
setup_postdata( $post );

echo '<div class="alpha wiadImg_a">';
the_post_thumbnail();
echo '<!-- koniec wiadImg_a --></div>';
echo '<div class="alko"><div class="wiadTyt_a">';
echo '<h1 class="wiadTyt">';
echo "<a href="."/'"."the_permalink()"."/'";
echo 'class=/"wiadTyt_a/">'.the_title().'</a></h1><!-- koniec wiadTyt_a --></div>';
}  

echo '<div class="wiadPodtyt"><ul>';
$piwa = get_posts( 
array(
    'posts_per_page' => 2,
    'cat'  => $postcat,
    'post__not_in'   => $news_ids,
'offset' => 1
)
);
foreach ( $piwa as $post ) {
setup_postdata( $post );
echo "<li><a href=/'/";
the_permalink();
echo "/'";
echo 'class=/"subtytulyWiad/">';
the_title(); 
echo '</a></li>';
}
wp_reset_query();
echo '</ul><!-- koniec wiadPodtyt --></div><!-- koniec alko #prawe pude?ko --></div>';
//koniec fcji print_alko
}

and the result is only 1 last news, graphically corect, but wrong content. Something is wrong with the wp_query - it makes wrong query.

Answer 1

You can make your own function to minimize the characters typed for each time you want to repeat the call to get_posts:

in functions.php (perhaps):

function print_piwa($postcount=2, $cat_id=81) {
    ?>
    <div class="wiadPodtyt">
        <ul>
            <?php 
            $piwa = get_posts(array(
                'posts_per_page' => $postcount,
                'cat' => $cat_id,
                'post__not_in' => $news_ids,
                'offset' => 1
            ));
            foreach ($piwa as $post) {
                setup_postdata($post);
                ?>
                <li>
                    <a href='<?php the_permalink(); ?>' class="subtytulyWiad">
                        <?php the_title(); ?>
                    </a>
                </li>
                <?php
            }
            ?>
        </ul>
    </div>
    <?php
}

You'll obviously need to figure out what variables you want to set and use them accordingly, but there's no reason you can't use get_posts in a function of your own making.

Then you can just call your function in your templates:

<?php print_piwa(5, 81); ?>