Counter in loop in foreach

EDIT

Ok so after better understanding your issue, I would not use a counter but a true/false flag that we switch when it’s been used. Try this code.

$cats = array('batiments-delevage', 'logements-bovin', 'stockages-deffluents', 'soins-et-hygiene');
$exclude_posts = array();
$active = true;
foreach( $cats as $cat ) :
  // build query argument
  $query_args = array(
  'category_name' => $cat,
  'posts_per_page'=> 1,
  'post_type'     => 'post',
  'post_status'   => 'publish',
  'meta_key'      => 'wpb_post_views_count', //custom field for view count
  'orderby'       => 'meta_value_num',
  'order'         => 'DESC'
);

// exclude post that already have been fetched
// this would be useful if multiple category is assigned for same post
if( !empty($exclude_posts) )
  $query_args['post__not_in'] = $exclude_posts;

// do query
$query = new WP_Query( $query_args );

if ($query->have_posts()) : // check if query have any post

  while ($query->have_posts()) : $query->the_post(); // start loop & set post global 
    // Get category slug parent info
    $category = get_the_category();
    $cat_slug = $category[0]->slug;
    $cat_name = $category[0]->name;
    $cat_url =  get_category_link( $category[0]->cat_ID );
    $post_date_month = get_the_date('M');
    $post_date_year = get_the_date('Y');


    $exclude_posts[] = get_the_ID();

?><div class="item <?php if( $active ){ echo 'active'; $active = false; } ?>">
  <header class="header-item">
    <a class="link-img" href="https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/237694/<?php the_permalink(); ?>">
      <?php the_post_thumbnail('tab-slider', array( 'class' => 'img-responsive') ); ?>
    </a>
    <div class="date-box"><?php
      echo $post_date_month.'<br/>';
      echo '<small>'.$post_date_year.'</small>';
  ?></div>
  </header><!-- /header -->
    <div class="carousel-caption"> 
      <h4><a href="https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/237694/<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h4>
      <p class="meta-cat"><small><span class="inline-categ-icon visible-xs-block visible-sm-block icon-<?php echo $cat_slug;?>"></span>  Dans <a href="<?php echo $cat_url;?>" title="Voir les articles dans la rubrique « <?php echo $cat_name;?> » "><?php echo $cat_name;?></a></small></p>
      <p class="most-view-excerpt"><?php echo excerpt(27); ?></p>
    </div>
    <p><a class="read-more" href="https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/237694/<?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="Lire notre article <?php the_title(); ?>">Lire le reportage</a></p>
  </div>
<?php endwhile; endif; ?>

<?php endforeach; ?>

ORIGINAL

You don’t need a counter to do the job, you can use the current_post property of the current object which returns the index of the current object

so instead of using

if ($i == 0)

try

if( 0 == $query->current_post )

and get rid of your counters

Related Posts:

  1. Second level subcategory
  2. How can I modify this code to iterate over an array of categories?
  3. Get the children of the parent category
  4. How do I get the category URL from get_the_category?
  5. Default WP Gallery – show only galleries of a certain category
  6. Rearranging posts based on categories
  7. WP_Query not looking at child category
  8. Display all posts in category, with specific tag posts at top
  9. Display list of Sub-Categories and the posts they contain, within one main Category
  10. Remove child products from woocommerce category page [closed]
  11. Get a list of commas separated categories inside a loop
  12. How do I get the total number of categories in a list of search results?
  13. User Defined order on get_categories?
  14. Check if post belongs to any category
  15. How do I display the posts from a custom post type on a category.php page?
  16. How to group the loop posts in a particular by author?
  17. Display products for a category, sorted by post_excerpt
  18. Exclude category from loop not working
  19. Category archive page – loop through posts of certain tag (with pagination) – pre_get_posts
  20. If newest post of category is newest post in general, skip first post of category
  21. Code to pull in a PHP file named after the category ID
  22. in_category() works in single.php but not in page.php?
  23. Why would in_category only return one post in a specific category?
  24. Is it possible to select and edit the way the most recent post from a certain category is displayed on the page?
  25. Implementing a tricky wordpress menu (nested categories + thumbnails)
  26. Taxonomy filter all children
  27. Displaying multiple loops based off of category
  28. How to loop only categories without posts (+ show category featured image with acf) [closed]
  29. Redirect category to url with /category
  30. create a page which displays a list of categories title+ short description?
  31. Enter a variable in the ‘category_name’ parameter
  32. how to define category loop last class in the third
  33. query in category.php repeats itself
  34. Remove product category placeholder image (Woocomerce)
  35. WooCommerce – How to show specific category first-rest of products-specific category last
  36. Display category name only once inside loop
  37. Woo Framework: woo_cat_featured not populating
  38. Exclude current post from loop
  39. How to insert category list into post creation page, and retrieve chosen categories?
  40. Categories list loop – add separator every 3 categories [closed]
  41. Create menu locations for each category in wordpress
  42. I’m trying to create an array with a foreach loop, but the array only stores the last item [closed]
  43. Pagination on category.php and tag.php not working
  44. Trying to get variables in hacked category dropdown
  45. How do I remove a category from a wordpress loop>
  46. How to do paging in the loop?
  47. How to get the last category name of a child category?
  48. Do not show sub categories in the loop on archive-product.php
  49. Problem with custom loop and wp_list_pluck [closed]
  50. Insert HTML content in WP Query at specific point
  51. Simple way to style posts of a single category differently in the loop and in single
  52. Display subcategories in dropdown
  53. Have posts that belong to multiple categories, exclude some categories from homepage
  54. Show multiple categories in query using redux framework variable
  55. Get the ID of the current post’s child category
  56. multiple values in an array for category__and does not work with WP_Query
  57. Display post thumbnail for specific category outside the loop
  58. List post only under the category, exclude child category content
  59. Filter Category Loop Dynamically
  60. the_category() doesn’t working in wp_query loop
  61. How to get posts using category slug in ClassiPress?
  62. Category sticky latest
  63. Explode() expects a string
  64. Show the categories the current post has
  65. Exclude posts without category from loop
  66. Show the number of the post
  67. How can I order all subcategories alphabetical independent of the parent categories?
  68. How to create a category loop on my blog (ACF Plugin)
  69. Multiple if statements with else for get_the_category [closed]
  70. Displaying Category in sidebar post widget but not in the loop on home
  71. Querying posts from two different categories while looping inside another loop
  72. How to add Pagination to foreach loop to page
  73. Loop doesn’t work
  74. How to loop through a custom field for each post, & display?
  75. show category name before first posts in each category
  76. Loop within category’s posts
  77. Display one post on category.php: Wrong featured image
  78. foreach,having wp_query inside, breaks after showing one result
  79. Category foreach Paging
  80. Loop through posts of CatA and store value of CatB in separate array
  81. How to add an empty entry to masonry?
  82. WordPress Numeric Pagination with Query String [duplicate]
  83. Loops in category description
  84. Several loop in search result
  85. Printing direct descendants of a category with WP_Query
  86. Category slug in in loop always the same?
  87. how to get number of posts in a category on a specific date
  88. Show posted on date only for posts in a certain category
  89. 2 loops in archive.php (one for each category)
  90. Detecting top parent category fails on home page
  91. Paginating a list of all posts collected by category titles
  92. Remove the_content From Loop
  93. Using pagination with multiple loops causes it to break
  94. How do I hide posts in a category from all listings but still allow the posts to be viewed?
  95. Call Current Category
  96. How to create a custom loop ordered by Categories on a Page Template?
  97. Post thats in Two Categories, only want to display name for one
  98. How can I implement pagination on custom category page?
  99. Order Categories by Character Count
  100. Get categories by title descendant
techhipbettruvabetnorabahisbahis forumutaraftarium24eduseduedusedusedusedusedueduedusedu