How do I get wordpress to override a previous posts query?

I've got a page that has a category list at the top, and should normally list posts below it. The category list is created using:

    <?php $display_categories = array(4,7,8,9,21,1); $i = 1;
foreach ($display_categories as $category) { ?>
<?php single_cat_title(); ?> //etc
</div>
    <?php } ?>

However, this seems to make the post loop order posts by category. I want it to ignore category ordering and order by date in descending order. I've created a new WP_Query since according to the docs you can't use query_posts() twice, so just in case.

    <?php $q = new WP_Query("cat=-1&showposts=15&orderby=date&order=DESC");
    if ( $q->have_posts() ) : while ( $q->have_posts() ) : $q->the_post(); ?>
    the_title(); // etc
    endwhile; endif; ?>

However, this still seems to be ordering by category (the same order as the list above) and then by date, as opposed to just by date.

From stackoverflow

• query_posts is finicky sometimes. Try something like this and see if it works:

  query_posts(array('category__not_in'=>array(1),
                    'showposts'=>15,
                    'orderby'=>date,
                    'order'=>DESC));
  

  Since that's not the issue, try adding update_post_caches($posts) to the second loop, like this:

  <?php $q = new WP_Query("cat=-1&showposts=15&orderby=date&order=DESC");
  if ( $q->have_posts() ) : while ( $q->have_posts() ) : $q->the_post(); update_post_caches($posts); ?>
  the_title(); // etc
  endwhile; endif; ?>
  

  Supposedly this solves some plugin problems.

  James Inman : Thanks for answering! That doesn't seem to make any difference, though.

• I don't have any experience with wordpress, but a couple of possibilities:

  1. You define the "order" parameter twice in the string you're calling query_posts() with, I don't know if that causes a problem or not.
  2. As well, "show" is not a valid parameter, you may have been looking for "showposts".

  Parameters and their effects are described here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags/query_posts#Parameters

  James Inman : Hi, thanks for noticing those. I've updated the code (and the post above), but it still doesn't seem to fix the issue.

• I've had problems with this before as well.

  Try this:

        <?php
       global $post;
       $myposts = get_posts('numberposts=5');
  
       foreach($myposts as $post) : 
       setup_postdata($post);
       ?>
         <div <?php post_class(); ?>>
           <div class="title">
             <h2><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
             <p class="small"><?php the_time('F j, Y'); ?> by <?php the_author(); ?></p>
           </div>
           <?php the_excerpt(); ?>
         </div>
   <?php 
       endforeach; 
   ?>
  

  The important line is 'global $post;'.

  That should reset your global query. The 'setup_postdata($post) method is necessary to give you access to functions like 'the_author()' or 'the_content()'.

  -Chris

• That worked - thanks Chris (and Pesto for trying, although I couldn't get it fixed with your solution).

  Christopher Hazlett : No problem James. Happy coding.