Archive listing of posts by publish year (multiple years)

I have an archive page showing all blog posts (in a specific category). With a growing number of posts, I want to separate these by publish year. For example (simplified), I’d like the following:

2012

• post
• post
• post

2011

• post

I’m testing this system by changing my oldest post’s publish date to mid-2011. Currently the structure appears to be mostly working, but all posts are showing up under 2012, and none under 2011, despite the oldest post’s publish date being set to 2011. To illustrate, I’m getting this:

2012

• post
• post
• post
• post (2011 post)

2011

I’m using the code below (some extra stuff has been removed to simplify, but it doesn’t affect the result). Can anyone see why the old post is showing up under 2012 and not inside the 2011 <ul>? Thanks for your help.

<?php global $query_string; query_posts($query_string . '&posts_per_page=-1'); // Show all posts ?>
<?php if (have_posts() {
if (is_category('210')) { ?>
<div class="archive-posts-box">
    <?php $firstyear = '2011';
    $currentyear = date('Y');
    $postyear = get_the_time('Y', $post->ID);
    for ($i = $currentyear; $i >= $firstyear; $i--) { ?>
            <h4><?php echo $i ?></h4>
            <ul class="archive-posts">
            <?php while (have_posts() && $postyear == $i) {
                the_post(); ?>
                <li><span class="archive-post-title"><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener"><?php the_title(); ?></a></span><span class="archive-post-date"><?php the_time(get_option('date_format')); ?></span></li>
            <?php } // end while ?>
            </ul>
        <?php } // end for ?>        
</div><!-- .archive-posts-box -->
<?php } // end if (category)
} // end if (have_posts)
wp_reset_query() ?>

Answers:

Thank you for visiting the Q&A section on Magenaut. Please note that all the answers may not help you solve the issue immediately. So please treat them as advisements. If you found the post helpful (or not), leave a comment & I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Method 1

My original impression was that I believe that what is happening is that the Loop doesn’t get incremented until the_post runs so your && $postyear == $i check is actually looking at the previous post not the current one. You are going to have to reorganize this to get that check after the Loop is incremented by the_post.

That said, I don’t think I trust this logic at an even deeper level. You are setting $postyear before an enclosing loop ($postyear = get_the_time('Y', $post->ID);) so it isn’t even effected by what happens with the_post. That worries me.

I know you don’t want this much revision but for what it is worth I am thinking you need something more like:

 $oldyear = $postyear = get_the_time('Y', $post->ID);?>
 <h4><?php echo $postyear; ?></h4>
    <ul class="archive-posts"><?php
    while (have_posts()) {
      the_post();
      $postyear = get_the_time('Y', $post->ID);
      if ($oldyear != $postyear) {
    $oldyear = $postyear; ?>
    </ul><h4><?php echo $postyear; ?></h4><ul class="archive-posts">
    <?php
      } ?>
    <li><span class="archive-post-title">
    <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener"><?php the_title(); ?>
    </a></span><span class="archive-post-date"><?php the_time(get_option('date_format')); ?></span></li><?php
    }
    echo '</ul>';
?>

I am going way, waaayy out on a limb with that. It has barely been tested but it should give you an idea.

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0