Often in many blogging sites, you will see two or three columns of the most important categories. Recently I had to do this for a blog. It was a little bit cumbersome and time consuming. So, I would like to share the solution so that you can kill the time waste trying yourself in case you do not know how to do it. In this solution, I show 5 posts at maximum from my chosen three categories.

OK.
Let us start and let me show how to do it.

Step One: See the sample what would be the output

In the above image, you will notice that the first category has enough posts, so it can fetch 5 (five) posts for us. But in second column and third column, there are only three posts because those categories do not have more than three posts. And what I want to say at this point is - although we will try to get 5 posts from each category, we will not get enough in case that category has less than 5 (five) posts and this is done automatically.

Step Two: Adding custom function

<?php
	if(!function_exists(‘postListByCategory’))
	{
		function categoryNameByCategoryID($categoryID = 0)
		{
			global $wpdb;
			$sqlQuery = ‘SELECT name FROM ‘ . $wpdb->prefix . “terms WHERE term_id=$categoryID”;
			return $wpdb->get_var($sqlQuery);
		}
	}
	if(!function_exists(‘postListByCategory’))
	{
		function postListByCategoryID($categoryID = 0)
		{
			$outputString = ”;
			query_posts(‘orderby=name&order=asc&cat=‘ . $categoryID . ‘&showposts=5‘);
			$outputString .= ‘<ul>‘ . chr(10);
			while (have_posts()) : the_post();
				$permaLink = get_permalink();
				$permaLink = trim($permaLink);
				if(!empty($permaLink))
				{
					$outputString .= ‘<li>‘ . chr(10);
					$outputString .= ‘<a href=“‘ . get_permalink() . ‘”>‘ . get_the_title($post->ID) . ‘</a><br />‘ . chr(10);
					$outputString .= ‘<small>‘ . get_the_time(‘D M jS Y’) .‘</small>‘ . chr(10);
					$outputString .= ‘</li>‘ . chr(10);
				}
			endwhile;
			$outputString .= ‘</ul>‘ . chr(10);
			return $outputString;
		}
	}
?>

Now open the functions.php file inside your theme directory and insert these two functions. If there is none, create a functions.php file. And at this point, please remember that all the functions and coding in this file are automatically added during the code execution.

Note that the function names are self descriptive.

Step Three: Embed code in your file(s)

Now open your footer.php file or any other file and add this code. In 99% cases, you may need to customize this small piece of code. The first three lines are category IDs.

<?php
	$firstColumnCategoryID  = 1;
	$secondColumnCategoryID = 30;
	$thirdColumnCategoryID  = 31;
?>
	<div id="bottomThreeColumns">
		<div id="bottomColumn">
			<div id="bottomColumnTop">&nbsp;<?php echo categoryNameByCategoryID($firstColumnCategoryID); ?></div>
			<?php echo postListByCategoryID($firstColumnCategoryID); ?>
		</div>
		<div id="bottomColumn">
			<div id="bottomColumnTop">&nbsp;<?php echo categoryNameByCategoryID($secondColumnCategoryID); ?></div>
				<?php echo postListByCategoryID($secondColumnCategoryID); ?>
		</div>
		<div id="bottomColumnThird">
			<div id="bottomColumnTop">&nbsp;<?php echo categoryNameByCategoryID($thirdColumnCategoryID); ?></div>
			<?php echo postListByCategoryID($thirdColumnCategoryID); ?>
		</div>
	</div>

Step Four: Link your CSS code

#bottomThreeColumns
{
	width:940px; min-height:100px; margin:0 auto; clear:both;
}
#bottomThreeColumns UL
{
	margin:0px 0px 30px 0px; padding:0px;
}
#bottomThreeColumns LI
{
	list-style:none; border-bottom:#EEEEEE solid 1px; margin:7px 0px 0px 4px;
}
#bottomThreeColumns LI A
{
	text-decoration:none; color:#000000;
}
#bottomThreeColumns LI A:hover
{
	text-decoration:underline;
}
#bottomThreeColumns SMALL
{
	font-style:italic; line-height:25px; padding:0px 0px 0px 4px;
}
#bottomColumn
{
	float:left; width:300px; margin:20px 20px 0px 0px;
}
#bottomColumnThird
{
	float:left; width:300px; margin:20px 0px 0px 0px;
}
#bottomColumnTop
{
	width:300px; height:26px; background:#5FB8EB; color:#FFFFFF;
	line-height:25px; font-weight:bold;
}

I have put the above CSS code in my style.css file. In 99% cases, you may need to customize according to your requirements.

Step Five: Test everything by opening the link

Now test you code and we are done!

Thank you for reading.

When I was new to PHP 5 Object Oriented Programming (OOP), the serialization and un-serialization issues were not clear to me and I used to get confused with them often. Nowadays I can play with them easily and I will try to share my knowledge with you so that you can kill your confusion on these topics.

OK. Let us start!

What is Serialization?

This process makes a storable representation of a value that is useful for storing or passing PHP values around without losing their type and structure.

Remember the “__sleep” function in case of Serialization

Before starting your serialization process, PHP will execute the __sleep function automatically. This is a magic function or method.

What is Unserialization?

This process takes a single serialized variable and converts it back into a PHP value.

Remember the “__wakeup” function in case of Unserialization

Before starting your unserialization process, PHP will execute the __wakeup function automatically. This is a magic function or method.

What can you Serialize and Unserialize?

Many things as such

1. Variables (Integer, Float, Real, String etc.)
2. Arrays
3. Objects etc.

What cannot you Serialize and Unserialize?

Only one type

1. Resource-type

A simple example of Serialization and Unserialization

<?php
	require_once “class.serialize.php”;
	$myObject = new SerializationTest();
	$myObject->counter = 999;
	$myObject->myName  = ‘Random Visitor’;
	$myObject->myAge   = 59;
	$myString = ‘I am a simple line.’;
	$myArray = array();
	$myArray[0] = ‘One’;
	$myArray[1] = ‘Two’;
	$myArray[2] = ‘Three’;
	echo $myString . ‘<br />‘;
	var_dump($myArray);
	echo ‘<br />‘;
	echo ‘$myObject->counter: ‘ . $myObject->counter . ‘<br />‘;
	echo ‘$myObject->myName: ‘ . $myObject->myName . ‘<br />‘;
	echo ‘$myObject->myAge: ‘ . $myObject->myAge . ‘<br />‘;
	var_dump($myObject);
	$mySerializedString = serialize($myString);
	$mySerializedArray = serialize($myArray);
	$mySerializedObject = serialize($myObject);
	$myString = ‘I have changed!‘;
	$myArray[0] = ‘New 1‘;
	$myArray[1] = ‘New 2‘;
	$myArray[2] = ‘New 3‘;
	echo ‘<br /><br />‘;
	echo $myString . ‘<br />‘;
	var_dump($myArray);
	echo ‘<br />‘;
	$myUnserializedString = unserialize($mySerializedString);
	$myUnserializedArray = unserialize($mySerializedArray);
	$myUnserializedObject = unserialize($mySerializedObject);
	echo ‘<br /><br />‘;
	echo $myUnserializedString . ‘<br />‘;
	var_dump($myUnserializedArray);
	echo ‘<br />‘;
	echo ‘$myUnserializedObject->counter: ‘ . $myUnserializedObject->counter . ‘<br />‘;
	echo ‘$myUnserializedObject->myName: ‘ . $myUnserializedObject->myName . ‘<br />‘;
	echo ‘$myUnserializedObject->myAge: ‘ . $myUnserializedObject->myAge . ‘<br />‘;
	var_dump($myUnserializedObject);
?>

And here is the related class:

<?php
	class SerializationTest
	{
		public $counter;
		public $myName;
		public $myAge;
		function __construct()
		{
			$this->counter = 100;
			$this->myName  = ‘Tanzilo Insido’;
			$this->myAge   = 28;
		}
		function __sleep()
		{
			echo “<h3>__sleep()</h3>“;
			$this->counter = $this->counter + 1;
			echo ‘Serialization Process Started!‘ . ‘<br />‘;
			echo ‘$this->counter: ‘ . $this->counter .  ‘<br />‘;
			return array(myString);
		}
		function __wakeup()
		{
			echo “<h3>__wakeup()</h3>“;
			$this->counter = $this->counter - 1;
			echo ‘UnSerialization Process Started!‘ . ‘<br />‘;
			echo ‘$this->counter: ‘ . $this->counter .  ‘<br />‘;
		}
	}
?>

Explanation of the example

If you notice the A to Z of the above code, you will find that we have a $myString variable, $myArray array and $myObject object. First of all, we have set values to them and then printed them all. They all perform as expected. Then we change all the values. Next when we serialize and unserialize the values, our original dara structure returns! And that is what we wanted.

Here is the result of the above code:

An interesting thing to note:
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that using __sleep() method, you can change the values of your declared and initialized variables. But you cannot change them by using __wakeup() function. For example, see the following code:

Now we serialize 3 (three)  times and unserialize 2 (two) times.

<?php
	require_once “class.serialize.php”;
	$myObject = new SerializationTest();
	echo ‘<h3>Start Value:</h3>‘;
	echo ‘$this->counter: ‘ . $myObject->counter . ‘<br />‘;
	echo ‘$this->myString: ‘ . $myObject->myString;
	$serializeData_1 = serialize($myObject);
	$serializeData_2 = serialize($myObject);
	$serializeData_3 = serialize($myObject);
	$unSerializeData_1 = unserialize($serializeData_1);
	$unSerializeData_2 = unserialize($serializeData_2);
?>

And here is the result if we serialize 3 (three)  times and unserialize 2 (two) times.

Although we initialized $this->counter variable in the __construct() function, it is not used or has no effect in __wakeup() function. But it works properly in __sleep() or serialize() process. But what is the reason? The explanation is simple. The __wakeup() is part of the process when your data is retrieved from memory. Another thing is - did you notice the array return in the __sleep() function? Without returning this, the process often does not work. So, please remember to keep in your code.

You can download these small pieces of code files from here:
http://www.tanzilo.com/demo/code/serialize/serialize.zip

Thank you for reading.

You know English is the international language and accepted as international communication. So, most of the websites have been developed in English. But in many other times, a developer needs to work with local languages where they are developing a website in PHP. If you develop in local language, you need to know a small trick and that will show your content properly in all browsers smoothly.

So, what is the technique?

Well. Let me explain step by step.

Step One: An observation
I will show you the source code of two Bengali newspaper. In this newspaper: http://www.prothom-alo.com, the fonts and text comes properly in all browsers. But in this newspaper: http://www.ittefaq.com, it can show text and fonts properly only in Internet Explorer.

Now the matter is we must make sure our content will be displayed properly in any browser. Right?

OK. So what is the difference between the two websites I just gave example?

If you take a look at the source code of the first website’s content, you will find it is like this:সઃপাদক

This is another website that had been developed as smooth site in the same technique: http://www.bdnews24.com/bangla. If you check its code, you will see that it uses same type of code for its text.

So, what are these পাদকীয় things? It is very interesting that these are universal representation of local language in HTML entities. For every character of any local language, there is a unique and fixed symbol defined such as প in HTML entities. When you bring this kind of text in your browser source code, the site content looks smooth without any break and fonts displays properly.

Now if you open the source code of http://www.ittefaq.com, you will see something like AvR beg RvZxq msm` wbe©vP‡b jovB n‡e †RvU-gnv‡Rv‡Ui g‡a¨. The matter is they are also showing Bengali news content, but in a different way that is not useful in cross-broswer platform. This is often totally recognized by only Internet Explorer and often partially recognized by other browsers.

Step Two: Storing your local language content in the database
You see I have some content in my local language (Bangla) in the database.

Step Three: Converting your local language text in Universal code
Well. This is extremely easy.

<?php
	class UnicodeHandler
	{
		var $dbLink;
		var $sqlQuery;
		var $dbResult;
		var $dbRow;
		var $salary;
		var $bonus;
		/* Use this constructor in case your PHP version is 4. */
/*
		function UnicodeHandler()
		{
			$this->dbLink = ”;
			$this->sqlQuery = ”;
			$this->dbResult = ”;
			$this->dbRow = ”;
			$this->mySalary = 0;
			$this->myBonus = 0;
			$this->dbLink = mysql_connect(‘localhost’, ‘root’, ”);
			mysql_query(“SET character_set_results=utf8″, $this->dbLink);
			mb_language(‘uni’);
			mb_internal_encoding(‘UTF-8‘);
			mysql_select_db(‘test’, $this->dbLink);
			mysql_query(“set names ‘utf8′“,$this->dbLink);
		}
*/
		/* Use this constructor in case your PHP version is 5 or 5+. */
		/* I assume you are using PHP 5 or 5+. */
		function __construct()
		{
			$this->dbLink = ”;
			$this->sqlQuery = ”;
			$this->dbResult = ”;
			$this->dbRow = ”;
			$this->mySalary = 0;
			$this->myBonus = 0;
			$this->dbLink = mysql_connect(‘localhost’, ‘root’, ”);
			mysql_query(“SET character_set_results=utf8″, $this->dbLink);
			mb_language(‘uni’);
			mb_internal_encoding(‘UTF-8‘);
			mysql_select_db(‘test’, $this->dbLink);
			mysql_query(“set names ‘utf8′“,$this->dbLink);
		}
		function displayLocalContent()
		{
			mysql_query(“SET character_set_results=utf8″, $this->dbLink);
			$this->sqlQuery = “SELECT * FROM unitext “;
			$this->dbResult = mysql_query($this->sqlQuery, $this->dbLink);
			while($this->dbRow = mysql_fetch_object($this->dbResult))
			{
				echo ‘News: ‘ . $this->convertToLocalHtml($this->dbRow->news) . ‘<br />‘;
			}
		}
		function convertToLocalHtml($localHtmlEquivalent)
		{
			$localHtmlEquivalent = mb_convert_encoding($localHtmlEquivalent,“HTML-ENTITIES”,“UTF-8“);
			return $localHtmlEquivalent;
		}
	}
?>

The displayLocalContent() function is going to display the news and convertToLocalHtml() function converts my utf-8 content to HTML entities.

And here in index.php I am executing my displayLocalContent() function.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Displaying Your Local Language</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
	include_once ‘class.unicode.php’;
	$unicodeObject = new UnicodeHandler();
	$unicodeObject->displayLocalContent();
?>
</body>
</html>

As a result, the output is now as ঢাকা, ডিসে etc.

Step Four: You need to check my other posting for SELECT, INSERT & UPDATE your local language.
Here goes my other article so that you can perform all required operations for storing and displaying information in browser smoothly:
http://www.tanzilo.com/2008/10/13/php-mysql-unicode-solution-to-chinese-russian-or-any-language/

An alternative way
I have an alternative way in my mind and that is when you store the data in the database, you can first convert them to universal code such as কীয়and then directly show your text.

This article will cover any language such as Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Assamese, Aymara, Azeri, Belarusian, Bengali, Bislama, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Catalan, Chinese, Mandarin,Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dari, Dhivehi, Dutch, Dzongkha, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian,  Gagauz, Georgian, German, Greek, Guaraní, Gujarati, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hindi, Hiri Motu, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Kashmiri, Kazakh, Khmer, Korean, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Macedonian, Malagasy, Malay, Malayalam, Maltese, Māori, Marathi, Mayan, Moldovan, Mongolian, Montenegrin,Náhuatl, Ndebele, Nepali, New Zealand Sign Language, Northern Sotho, Norwegian, Oriya, Papiamento, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Quechua, Romanian, Rhaeto-Romansh, Russian, Sanskrit, Serbian, Shona, Sindhi, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovene, Somali, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swati, Swedish, Tagalog, Tajik, Tamil, Telugu, Tetum, Thai, Tok Pisin, Tsonga, Tswana, Turkish, Turkmen, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Venda, Vietnamese, Welsh, Xhosa, Yiddish, Zulu etc.

You can also download this small piece of code from here:
http://www.tanzilo.com/demo/code/convert_to_unicode/convert_to_unicode.zip

Thank you for reading.

Recently a visitor from my country asked me how he can add Unicode numbers stored in MySQL database.  I was thinking that it is really a good question. Because you may store any number in any local language to your database and later you may try to add or delete them.

For example, in Bangla language an employee’s salary can be ২৪১৮৬ (which is 24186 in English) bucks and the coder may want to store it in a table under salary field. Another field can be bonus and it can be ২০০০ (2000 in English). Now the coder may want to add them up anytime required. You know adding 24186 and 2000 is easy. But what the coder may do in case the values are stored in a local language?

The visitor asked me how he can use the MySQL sum() function in case the data are stored in Unicode format. Well. I do not think MySQL’s unicode will support the sum() function or even if there is one I do not know frankly speaking. So, I thought and developed an alternative solution.

Here is the alternative solution steps:

1. I get the unicode numbers from the database
2. Convert them to English number
3. Sum them up or anything like substract, multiply or divide etc
4. Convert the result to Unicode once again

Thus, it looks simple procedure. Right?

Before we start I would like to suggest you download the codes from the bottom link of the page and take a look. Because some code may not look as the original one for browser’s case sensitiveness. So, it is better to look at the original code from the download link below.

So,  I wrote a small class to handle the whole procedure and here goes the coding of my class:

<?php
	class UnicodeHandler
	{
		var $dbLink;
		var $sqlQuery;
		var $dbResult;
		var $dbRow;
		var $salary;
		var $bonus;
		/* Use this constructor in case your PHP version is 4. */
		/*
		function UnicodeHandler()
		{
			$this->dbLink = ”;
			$this->sqlQuery = ”;
			$this->dbResult = ”;
			$this->dbRow = ”;
			$this->mySalary = 0;
			$this->myBonus = 0;
			$this->dbLink = mysql_connect(‘localhost’, ‘root’, ”);
			mysql_query(“SET character_set_results=utf8″, $this->dbLink);
			mb_language(‘uni’);
			mb_internal_encoding(‘UTF-8‘);
			mysql_select_db(‘test’, $this->dbLink);
			mysql_query(“set names ‘utf8′“,$this->dbLink);
		}
		*/
		/* Use this constructor in case your PHP version is 5 or 5+. */
		/* I assume you are using PHP 5 or 5+. */
		function __construct()
		{
			$this->dbLink = ”;
			$this->sqlQuery = ”;
			$this->dbResult = ”;
			$this->dbRow = ”;
			$this->mySalary = 0;
			$this->myBonus = 0;
			$this->dbLink = mysql_connect(‘localhost’, ‘root’, ”);
			mysql_query(“SET character_set_results=utf8″, $this->dbLink);
			mb_language(‘uni’);
			mb_internal_encoding(‘UTF-8‘);
			mysql_select_db(‘test’, $this->dbLink);
			mysql_query(“set names ‘utf8′“,$this->dbLink);
		}
		function displayTotalPayment()
		{
			mysql_query(“SET character_set_results=utf8″, $this->dbLink);
			$this->sqlQuery = “SELECT * FROM bangla_number “;
			$this->dbResult = mysql_query($this->sqlQuery, $this->dbLink);
			$this->total = 0;
			while($this->dbRow = mysql_fetch_object($this->dbResult))
			{
				echo ‘Employee ID # ‘ . $this->dbRow->id . ‘<br />‘;
				echo ‘Salary: ‘ . $this->dbRow->salary . ‘<br />‘;
				echo ‘Bonus: ‘ . $this->dbRow->bonus . ‘<br />‘;
				$totalPayment = $this->convertToEnglishNumber($this->dbRow->salary) +
				$this->convertToEnglishNumber($this->dbRow->bonus);
				echo ‘Total Payment: ‘ . $this->convertToBanglaNumber($totalPayment) . ‘<br />‘;
				echo ‘<br /><br />‘;
			}
		}
		function convertToEnglishNumber($unicodeNumber)
		{
			$englishNumber = mb_convert_encoding($unicodeNumber,“HTML-ENTITIES”,“UTF-8“);
			$englishNumber = str_replace(‘০;‘, ‘0‘, $englishNumber);
			$englishNumber = str_replace(‘১;‘, ‘1‘, $englishNumber);
			$englishNumber = str_replace(‘২;‘, ‘2‘, $englishNumber);
			$englishNumber = str_replace(‘৩;‘, ‘3‘, $englishNumber);
			$englishNumber = str_replace(‘৪’, ‘4‘, $englishNumber);
			$englishNumber = str_replace(‘৫’, ‘5‘, $englishNumber);
			$englishNumber = str_replace(‘৬’, ‘6‘, $englishNumber);
			$englishNumber = str_replace(‘৭;‘, ‘7‘, $englishNumber);
			$englishNumber = str_replace(‘৮;‘, ‘8‘, $englishNumber);
			$englishNumber = str_replace(‘৯’, ‘9‘, $englishNumber);
			return $englishNumber;
		}
		function convertToBanglaNumber($englishNumber)
		{
			$englishNumber = (string) $englishNumber;
			$banglaNumber = ”;
			$indexLimit = strlen($englishNumber);
			for($i=0; $i<$indexLimit; $i++)
			{
				switch($englishNumber[$i])
				{
					case “0“:
						$banglaNumber .= ‘০;‘;
						break;
					case “1“:
						$banglaNumber .= ‘১;‘;
						break;
					case “2“:
						$banglaNumber .= ‘২;‘;
						break;
					case “3“:
						$banglaNumber .= ‘৩;‘;
						break;
					case “4“:
						$banglaNumber .= ‘৪’;
						break;
					case “5“:
						$banglaNumber .= ‘৫’;
						break;
					case “6“:
						$banglaNumber .= ‘৬’;
						break;
					case “7“:
						$banglaNumber .= ‘৭;‘;
						break;
					case “8“:
						$banglaNumber .= ‘৮;‘;
						break;
					case “9“:
						$banglaNumber .= ‘৯’;
						break;
					default:
						$banglaNumber .= $englishNumber[$i];
						break;
				}
			}
			return $banglaNumber;
		}
	}
?>

If you are not using Bengali language, you need to configure the equivalent number values in convertToEnglishNumber and convertToBanglaNumber functions.

And here goes the page where I am executing the displayTotalPayment() function.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Unicode Number Adding</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
	include_once ‘class.unicode.php’;
	$salaryObject = new UnicodeHandler();
	$salaryObject->displayTotalPayment();
?>
</body>
</html>

Now the final result looks like this:

Oh! One important thing. If you are coding for European number format, you need to do some modification to handle the comma (,) factor in the number in case required.

Thus, if you use this small tricky method, you can add, subtract,  multiply or divide any local numbers such as Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, German, Polish, Turkey, Hindi etc.

You can also download this small piece of code from here:
http://www.tanzilo.com/demo/code/unicode_number_add/unicode_number_add.zip

Thank you for reading.

Often I see people coming to my site searching with the terms wordpress get page id, wordpress get page content or something similar. I think wordpress developers face situations when they need to get page or post information in customized way. It happened to me too and I would like to share it with others since often people are coming to search this information.

Well. It is very easy and we can solve it quickly.
OK. Now let me show you how to get these information.

Remember one thing that is important for wordpress data fetching of this kind. Your posts and pages information is saved in a single database table and that is wp_posts. The wp_ is the prefix of you database and may differ. But most of the times the database table name is wp_posts and other times it is YourCustomPrefix_posts. We are going to fetch data from this table.

Wordpress - print page id:

There is a built-in wordpress function using which you can print the post or page id. When you call this, this directly prints this inforation in your page without the need to use the built-in PHP echo or print function. Remember to keep it in the while loop.

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
	<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
		<?php the_ID(); ?>
	<?php endwhile; ?>
<?php endif; ?>

Wordpress - get page id:

There is a global variable post which contains the related information of the currest post or page. The name of the variable is: $post and it is actually an object. You can access information just as you access variables from an object. Remember to keep it in the while loop.

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
	<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
        <?php
		global $post;
		echo $post->ID;
        ?>
	<?php endwhile; ?>
<?php endif; ?>

You can print all the information in the $post object to see all the variables and their values that is contains.

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
	<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
        <?php
		global $post;
		var_dump($post);
        ?>
	<?php endwhile; ?>
<?php endif; ?>

Wordpress - get page content:

Now you know you can get the page or post content from $post->post_content variable. But if you echo or print them, they may look somewhat without formatting. So, you need to use PHP built-in nl2br() function to look the content as it is.

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
	<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
        <?php
		global $post;
		echo nl2br($post->post_content);
        ?>
	<?php endwhile; ?>
<?php endif; ?>

Wordpress - get any information of your page or post:

You know you can print all information to check all the available variables and their values through using PHP’s built-in var_dump() function. Suppose you need to get the post title, post type and posting time. We can get them easily in this way.

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
	<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
        <?php
		global $post;
		echo $post->post_title;
		echo $post->post_type;
		echo $post->post_date;
        ?>
	<?php endwhile; ?>
<?php endif; ?>

Please notice that post_title, post_type and post_date are all several database fields from wp_posts table of our wordpress database.

Very easy. Right? And that is all for getting the page or post information.

Thank you for reading.

Recently I was working for a Irish guy who has opened a wordpress blog few months ago. I did the theme for him. Recently he requested me for modifying and/or upgrading the project. One of the project requirements was URL rewriting. For example, there can a URL as follows:
http://www.sitename.com/index.php?group_name=My-Input-Value-Goes-Here

But after rewrite, the URL should look like:
http://www.sitename.com/My-Input-Value-Goes-Here

Well. You see I am passing the variable value in index.php file. But I needed to read the custom URL passed value through another PHP file and that is group.php. My group.php file was inside the theme folder. I am passing the group_name value in index.php file but reading from group.php file. It sounds a bit interesting. Huh?

OK. After browsing several blogs, I came up to writing a custom plugin. Thanks to Google.com and all those people sharing information.

My plugin made me a way so that I could pass a variable value in index.php file but read it from group.php file. This plugin code is available almost everywhere. Here goes my plugin:

<?php
	/*
	Plugin Name: WP Custom URL
	Plugin URI: http://www.tanzilo.com/#
	Description: A plugin to allow parameters to be passed in the URL and recognized by Wordpress
	Author: Tanzilo
	Version: 1.0
	Author URI: http://www.tanzilo.com/
	*/
	function flush_rewrite_rules()
	{
		global $wp_rewrite;
		$wp_rewrite->flush_rules();
	}
	function add_rewrite_rules( $wp_rewrite )
	{
		$new_rules = array(
	  		‘(.+)‘ => ‘index.php?group_name=’ .
			$wp_rewrite->preg_index(1) );
		$wp_rewrite->rules = $new_rules + $wp_rewrite->rules;
	}
	function add_query_vars( $qvars )
	{
		$qvars[] = ‘group_name’;
		return $qvars;
	}
	function template_redirect_file()
	{
		global $wp_query;
		if ( $wp_query->get(‘group_name’