[RESOLVED] Help with php code wordpress, displaying authors

[nickc25]

Hi

I have created a template from a tutorial (http://wpsplash.com/how-to-create-a-wordpress-authors-page/) but I have a problem with it. For some reason it is listing users that are not authors!

Does anyone know if there is something wrong with the code?

This is the code from the template (authors.php)

<?php
$authors = $wpdb->get_results('SELECT DISTINCT post_author FROM '.$wpdb->posts);if($authors):foreach($authors as $author):
?>
		<div class='author' id='author-<?php the_author_meta('user_login', $author->post_author); ?>'>
		  <div class="connect"><h3><strong>Writer Name: </strong>
	      <?php the_author_meta('display_name', $author->post_author); ?></h3></div>

		<?php if(get_the_author_meta('description', $author->post_author)): ?>
	  <div class='description'><strong>Writer Bio:</strong></div>
		<div class='description'>
			<?php echo get_avatar(get_the_author_meta('user_email', $author->post_author), 80); ?>
		  <p><?php the_author_meta('description', $author->post_author); ?></p>
		</div>
		<?php endif; ?>

		<?php
		$recentPost = new WP_Query('author='.$author->post_author.'&showposts=1');
		while($recentPost->have_posts()): $recentPost->the_post();
		?>
	  <h4><strong>Latest Post:</strong> <a href='<?php the_title();?>'><?php the_title(); ?></a>  <br /><strong>All Posts by</strong> <a href="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>/author/<?php the_author_meta('user_login', $author->post_author); ?>"><?php the_author_meta('display_name', $author->post_author); ?></a></h4>
		<?php endwhile; ?>
		<?php if(get_the_author_meta('twitter', $author->post_author) || get_the_author_meta('facebook', $author->post_author) || get_the_author_meta('linkedin', $author->post_author) || get_the_author_meta('digg', $author->post_author) || get_the_author_meta('flickr', $author->post_author)): ?>
  <ul class='connect'>
			<?php if(get_the_author_meta('twitter', $author->post_author)): ?>
<li><a href='http://twitter.com/<?php the_author_meta('twitter', $author->post_author); ?>'>Follow me on Twitter</a></li>
				<?php endif; ?>
				<?php if(get_the_author_meta('facebook', $author->post_author)): ?>
		<li><a href='http://www.facebook.com/<?php the_author_meta('facebook', $author->post_author); ?>'>View my Facebook Page</a></li>
				<?php endif; ?>
				<?php if(get_the_author_meta('youtube', $author->post_author)): ?>
		<li><a href='http://www.youtube.com/<?php the_author_meta('youtube', $author->post_author); ?>'>YouTube Channel</a></li>
				<?php endif; ?>
				<?php if(get_the_author_meta('digg', $author->post_author)): ?>
				<li><a href='http://digg.com/users/<?php the_author_meta('digg', $author->post_author); ?>'>Digg</a></li>
				<?php endif; ?>
				<?php if(get_the_author_meta('flickr', $author->post_author)): ?>
				<li><a href='http://www.flickr.com/photos/<?php the_author_meta('flickr', $author->post_author); ?>/'>Flickr</a></li>
				<?php endif; ?>
		  </ul>
			<?php endif; ?>
		</div>
		<?php endforeach; endif; ?>
	</div>

Thanks for any help 🙂

[bradgrafelman]

This sounds like a question that would be better posed on a forum dedicated to the Wordpress framework itself.

[nickc25]

bradgrafelman;10993645 wrote:

This sounds like a question that would be better posed on a forum dedicated to the Wordpress framework itself.

Hiya,

I have posted a total of 79 questions on the wordpress.org forum in the 5 years I have used it, I have had ONE reply 🙁 Nobody ever replies, the community is very poor considering it is such a big platform. Their site always has tons of questions / posts with no answers to it...

I just do not understand why random users are appearing in the list who are not even authors. Been trying to get to the bottom of it for 8 hours now 🙁

thanks for replying though 🙂

[bradgrafelman]

I only say that because what you're asking about is obviously an issue specifically related to the Wordpress framework; general PHP knowledge won't help much here.

For example, since I don't have a Wordpress installation handy at the moment, I have no idea what the DB table (whose name is found in $wpdb->posts) contains. One thing you could try to get more info would be to find one of the users' post_author value that is appearing in the output but shouldn't be and then locate the row(s) in this table that contain that value. See what those rows point to; for example, what's the post title linked to that post_author, and who is the real author of that post if you claim that this user isn't an author?

[nickc25]

Ok So I have figured out that it is listing users who were previously an author but they are no longer an author but they previously had made a post etc.

But also another weird thing is happening, certain current authors are not showing up on the list.

Maybe the tutorial I followed is too old for the current wordpress version, unsure 🙁

Thanks for the replies, Ill have a look into the database, although I am not that good at databases...

Nick

[bradgrafelman]

nickc25;10993649 wrote:

But also another weird thing is happening, certain current authors are not showing up on the list.

Perhaps they haven't made a post yet as a new author?

Either way, it sounds like the tutorial you followed isn't offering very good advice as far as how to approach this. You're trying to find current authors based on every post in the DB who ever references a user as an author. Obviously, authors change over time, and some authors might not have posted yet (but surely they still deserve the title of an author, no?).

Instead, I would say you should be searching through the current user table and SELECT'ing those users who have been flagged as having author permissions/privileges/roles. Again, since I don't have a Wordpress installation handy, I have no idea where/how this is done in the DB.