How to limit displayed posts on wordpress

Question

How would I edit the following code, so that only 2 of the posts are echoed instead of 3

   <?php

                            global $more; $more = false; # some wordpress wtf logic

                            $num_of_posts = $wp_query->post_count;

                            $current = -1;

                                $cat_id = get_cat_ID(single_cat_title('', false));
                                if(!empty($cat_id))
                                {
                                    $query_string.= '&cat='.$cat_id;
                                }

                            query_posts($query_string);

                            if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); $current++


                        ?> 

                            <?php if($current == 0) { ?>

Answer 1

You just have to check/count how many posts you alreay handled.

$num_post = 1;
while ( have_posts() && ($num_post++ < 3) ) : ...

Answer 2

The WP_Query class has several methods that push various information to the resulting $wp_query object:

• $wp_query->found_posts shows the total number of posts
• $wp_query->numberposts the same, but it's deprecated (still works)
• $wp_query->posts_per_page if you got a paged query, you can see how many per page you want to display
• $wp_query->current_post is the currently looped through post

So if you want to abort, simply go and

if ( 3 < $wp_query->current_post )
    break;

to stop the rest of the loop.

Answer 3

Another option would be to jump in use the post_limits filter. The following example summed up as mini-plugin or mu-plugin.

<?php
/* Plugin Name: (#90428) Posts Limit */
add_filter( 'post_limits', 'wpse90428_post_limits' );
function wpse90428_post_limits( $limit )
{
    if ( is_archive() )
        return 'LIMIT 0, 2';

    return $limit;
}

You could as well go further and set it during the parse_request (earlier) or pre_get_posts filter.

<?php
/* Plugin Name: (#90428) Posts Limit */
add_filter( 'parse_requests', 'wpse90428_post_limits' );
function wpse90428_post_limits( $query )
{
    if ( $query->is_archive() )
        $query->set( 'posts_per_page', 3 );

    return $query;
}

You'll just have to tweak this to your needs.