get_template_part and template file names

Question

I have a custom post type that is going to use a loop in a couple different places and I wanted to make maintaining those loops easier. I remembered that get_template_part() is available and figured this would be an optimal time to get used to it. However, what has me at a standstill is how to set up a file for the loops so that I can call the specific parts accurately.

Google, thus far, has been not helpful in understanding how get_template_part() and twentyten's loop.php actually work and call the 3 parts. I have it duplicated, stripped down and ready for altering for my CPT version, but that is it thus far.

Any help?

Answer 1

Codex has very decent explanation of get_template_part() logic:

Assuming the theme folder is wp-content/themes, that the parent theme is twentyten, and the child theme is twentytenchild, then the following code --

<?php get_template_part( 'loop', 'index' ); ?>

will do a PHP require() for the named files in this order:

1. wp-content/themes/twentytenchild/loop-index.php

2. wp-content/themes/twentytenchild/loop.php

3. wp-content/themes/twentyten/loop-index.php

4. wp-content/themes/twentyten/loop.php

Basically you can have more generic templates and more specialized templates. Specialized template is looked up before generic. That is pretty much everything about it.

Answer 2

I have always just used it to include files which are within my theme directory.

So, if i have a folder in the theme dir called functions that has a file called utils.php ( wp-content/themes/mytheme/functions/utils.php ) then you can just include the file like so

get_template_part( 'functions/utils' ); // includes /functions/utils.php - .php gets added automatically

or files in root of theme

get_template_part( 'sidebar' ); // includes sidebar.php

I don't really get the 2 parameters way of doing it. It works fine for me to just use the dir path structure to files and just leave of the file type.