Question

I have the code that generates random posts from the specific tag,

global $post;
$postid = $post->ID;
$args = array(
'orderby' => 'rand',
'showposts' => 10,
'tag' => 'ABC',             
'post__not_in' => array($postid)
);
query_posts($args);
echo '<ul>';
while (have_posts()) : the_post();
echo '<li><a href="'.get_permalink().'" title="'.the_title('','',false).'">'.the_title('','',false).'</a></li>';
endwhile;
echo '</ul>';

here the tag is ‘ABC’ but when i store ABC in a variable,

$tagABC = 'ABC';

and then call the variable here

global $post;
$postid = $post->ID;
$args = array(
'orderby' => 'rand',
'showposts' => 10,
'tag' => $tagABC,             
'post__not_in' => array($postid)
);
query_posts($args);
echo '<ul>';
while (have_posts()) : the_post();
echo '<li><a href="'.get_permalink().'" title="'.the_title('','',false).'">'.the_title('','',false).'</a></li>';
endwhile;
echo '</ul>';

it doesn’t work this way , could someone explain why is it so ?

Answer 1

Are you sure you are using the same variable name? Notice that the following is working as expected:

$tagABC = 'ABC';

$args = array(
'orderby' => 'rand',
'showposts' => 10,
'tag' => 'ABC',             
'post__not_in' => array(3)
);

$args2 = array(
'orderby' => 'rand',
'showposts' => 10,
'tag' => $tagABC,             
'post__not_in' => array(3)
);

var_dump($args2);
var_dump($args);

Is given the following output:

array(4) {
  ["orderby"]=>
  string(4) "rand"
  ["showposts"]=>
  int(10)
  ["tag"]=>
  string(3) "ABC"
  ["post__not_in"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    int(3)
  }
}
array(4) {
  ["orderby"]=>
  string(4) "rand"
  ["showposts"]=>
  int(10)
  ["tag"]=>
  string(3) "ABC"
  ["post__not_in"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    int(3)
  }
}

Which as you can see the array $args and $args2 have the same values and that means that the array that is passed to the function will be exactly the same if you use a variable or a string.