“pre_get_posts” firing on every query

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How can I change arguments for the main query only, and not affect other queries?

add_filter('pre_get_posts', 'custom_post_count');
function custom_post_count($query){
  $query->set('posts_per_page', 5);
  return $query;
};

Because this action is called inside the get_posts method of WP_Query, this code will alter the posts_per_page argument for all loops, not just the main, so passing this argument to WP_Query is useless…

2 Answers
2

Basically what you are looking for is the global $wp_the_query variable which is set to the value of the main query. It may not be a perfect fit for 100% of cases but will probably work fine in 99% of cases:

add_action( 'pre_get_posts', 'custom_post_count' );
function custom_post_count( $query ){
  global $wp_the_query;
  if ( $wp_the_query === $query ) {
    $query->set( 'posts_per_page', 5 );
  }
  return $query;
};

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