The Loop (main WordPress loop)

Basic WordPress loop structure

Each time WordPress loads the page, it will run main loop.

The loop is the way to iterate over all elements related to the page you are currently on.

Main loop will work on a global WP_Query object. The query has a globalized method have_posts(), that allows us to loop through all results. Finally inside the loop you can call the_post() method (also as a global function), which sets global post object to the current post inside the loop, and sets the postdata to the current post. Thanks to this you can call functions like the_title, the_content, the_author (template tags) directly inside the loop.

For example if you are on posts lists, main loop will contain a query object with all posts.

If you are on single post (or page), it will contain a query with single post (page) you are currently on.

if ( have_posts() ) : 
    while ( have_posts() ) :
        the_post();
        var_dump( $post );
    endwhile;
endif;

Alternative loop syntax

You can also use loop with curly brackets like this:

if ( have_posts() ) {
    while ( have_posts() ) {

        the_post(); 
        var_dump( $post );
    
    }
}

Handling no items in the loop

If you want to handle such scenario just add an if/else statement.

if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : 

    the_post(); 
    var_dump( $post );

endwhile; else :

    __('This Query does not have any results');    

endif;