Q. How do you understand the WordPress Loop and how would you use it to display a list of blog posts?

The WordPress loop, is PHP code that displays WordPress posts and pages. The Loop is defined by Codex (WordPress.org) as “the main process of WordPress”. The loop information is used to determine which data is collected from the database and how it is displayed on the web page or post.

The loop is used in WordPress themes to call templates and display a list of posts. Inside the loop there are functions that are run (called template tags) to display posts, WordPress provides the data required for a default Loop on every single page load. You can customise your own WordPress loops to display post and page information that you need and format, arrange, and publish post data.

In the loops simplest form it contains three parts:

1. Start the loop
2. Do something with each post/page found in the loop.
   Display tags (such as images, date, post type).
3. End the loop

An example of a simple loop:

<?php

query_posts( ‘tag=apples’ );

if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>

// DO SOMETHING WITH EACH POST THAT WE FOUND

<?php endwhile; else: ?>

// DO SOMETHING IF NOTHING WAS FOUND

<?php endif; ?>