{"id":166679,"date":"2017-08-14T13:00:13","date_gmt":"2017-08-14T13:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/premium.wpmudev.org\/blog\/?p=166679"},"modified":"2022-04-11T03:45:57","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T03:45:57","slug":"wp-query-arguments-filterable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-query-arguments-filterable\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Make WP_Query Arguments Filterable"},"content":{"rendered":"

The WP_Query<\/code> class is very powerful. It lets you create your own custom queries to run anywhere in your WordPress site \u2013 in the main content, in the sidebar or anywhere else you like.<\/p>\n

It’s something I use a lot, either in custom template files or in areas outside the content such as the sidebar or footer. And I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve coded a custom query using WP_Query<\/code>.<\/p>\n

But it is possible to avoid all that rework. If you make your query arguments filterable, you can write a function to amend the arguments and run a different query in different places in your site. This means you can write a plugin with some default arguments (or indeed with no arguments at all), and then write a function in your theme (or in another plugin) that amends those arguments.<\/p>\n

This won’t change the loop that runs using your query arguments (although if you want you could also create another filter for that), but it does mean you can code your WP_Query<\/code> instance once and then tweak it when you need to.<\/p>\n

In this post, I’ll show you how to write a plugin with a filterable instance of WP_Query<\/code> and then write a function in your theme’s functions file to edit the arguments.<\/p>\n

Continue reading, or jump ahead using these links:<\/p>\n