What is The Loop?

The Loop in WordPress refers to the PHP code that shows posts on a page. Themes use The Loop to determine how to display a specified amount of information on a webpage.


More About The Loop

You can find The Loop in a theme’s index.php file and any other templates that display post information. It is also the main process utilized by WordPress for showing posts on a page. This function determines how to format each page.

The Loop is composed of various tags that determine what information is displayed. Common items include title, time, excerpt, content, comments, etc. The Loop then extracts data from the WordPress database and inserts it in place of each tag.

You can also format the Loop to contain additional template tags. However, this process can be difficult for beginners.

You can find the Loop by locating the code starting and ending with if and while statements. For instance, a basic index.php file may start and end with:

if ( have_posts() ) :
while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();
endwhile;
endif;

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