wp query - How to count posts with specific arguments

I'm wondering how I can request the amount of posts by passing certain arguments (you could see this as part of a "query"). See the example below.

$args = [
    "numberposts" => -1, 
    "post_type" => "jobs", 
    "s" => "developer", 
    "tax_query" => ["taxonomy" => "IT", "field" => "slug"]
];
$posts = get_posts($args);
$count = count($posts);

I'm aware of the fact that the following function works perfectly for my case. However, it's extremely exhausting to execute. Instead of actually getting all posts within a query, I'm just looking for a function that just counts the posts with certain arguments.

Please bare in mind that I'm passing on certain meta_queries and tax_queries which will make some queries to the database fairly hard on itself already.

Hope someone can help.

I'm wondering how I can request the amount of posts by passing certain arguments (you could see this as part of a "query"). See the example below.

$args = [
    "numberposts" => -1, 
    "post_type" => "jobs", 
    "s" => "developer", 
    "tax_query" => ["taxonomy" => "IT", "field" => "slug"]
];
$posts = get_posts($args);
$count = count($posts);

I'm aware of the fact that the following function works perfectly for my case. However, it's extremely exhausting to execute. Instead of actually getting all posts within a query, I'm just looking for a function that just counts the posts with certain arguments.

Please bare in mind that I'm passing on certain meta_queries and tax_queries which will make some queries to the database fairly hard on itself already.

Hope someone can help.

• wp-query
• get-posts
• count

Share Improve this question edited Feb 5, 2019 at 17:16 Krzysiek Dróżdż 25.6k99 gold badges5353 silver badges7474 bronze badges asked Feb 5, 2019 at 16:08 JimJim 16011 silver badge1212 bronze badges

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1 Answer 1

Sorted by: Reset to default 6

The easiest way to optimize this query would be to add 'fields' => 'ids' to the arguments. This way only ids of posts will be retrieved from DB (and usually that’s a big change).

$args = [
    'numberposts' => -1, 
    'post_type' => 'jobs', 
    's' => 'developer', 
    'tax_query' => ['taxonomy' => 'IT', 'field' => 'slug'],
    'fields' => 'ids'
];
$posts = get_posts($args);
$count = count($posts);

On the other hand you can use WP_Query instead of get_posts. This way you can set posts_per_page to 1, so only one ID will be retrieved and use found_posts field of WP_Query to get the total number of posts matching your criteria.

$args = [
    'posts_per_page' => 1,
    'post_type' => 'jobs', 
    's' => 'developer', 
    'tax_query' => ['taxonomy' => 'IT', 'field' => 'slug'],
    'fields' => 'ids'
];
$query = new WP_Query($args);
$count = $query->found_posts;