How does the ternary operator work in the wordpress loop post?

The double colon in this case is part of the alternative syntax for control structures.
That’s not the ternary operator.

You could also write instead:

if ( have_posts() )
{
    while( have_posts() )
    {
        the_post();
        the_content();
    }
}

I prefer the second style, most code editors enable automatic folding with it, so I can close parts I don’t need to see.

Related Posts:

  1. Getting only direct child pages in WordPress with get_pages
  2. Query multiple custom post types in single loop
  3. Knowing the total number of posts before to get into the loop
  4. Build a content and excerpt grid loop with paging and options for # of posts
  5. How to loop over custom fields in a page template?
  6. Alter secondary loop to exclude posts from current page category
  7. Woocommerce, recognize the loop of related products
  8. Store loop into array
  9. Looping through WP_Post Object
  10. Easiest way to show total number of subpages
  11. Output 2 items within the Loop
  12. Show Custom Taxonomy Title
  13. How to exclude specific category from the get_the_category(); array
  14. spliting posts into two columns
  15. How to speed up a wordpress function with multiple loops?
  16. How can I add pagination and how can I change thumbnail size?
  17. How to Display a Single Post Excerpt
  18. $wpdb->flush(); breaks the loop
  19. Use object in template part
  20. Get first URL from post content
  21. ACF page while loop breaks footer while loop
  22. Show css depending on activity type in BuddyPress activity-loop [closed]
  23. Iterate through posts based on array of categories
  24. How to add condition in wordpress loop? [closed]
  25. Alert Bar section within WP loop is displaying even though there are no posts
  26. Checking array against author id in loop
  27. How do I Turn This Into An if statement?
  28. Load wordpress content in other domain
  29. Widgets in the loop if active
  30. How to get post ID in a Page?
  31. Custom Pagination is Broken
  32. PHP Warning: strip_tags() expects parameter 1 to be string?
  33. Echo a shortcode div after every 3 posts
  34. How to avoid duplicates when creating recent network posts
  35. variable value disappears in a second loop
  36. get_the_ID() in the footer returns wrong value
  37. Why my loop isn’t working? [closed]
  38. Only show first image in foreach loop
  39. How to pass current loop data into nested loop
  40. Get all posts as an array ID => Name
  41. How to get post ID from button and pass title to Modal
  42. WP_Query multiple post results
  43. Convert Featured products loop into Recent products loop?
  44. Wpdb get->results to out the the month from the db
  45. Display child page content of a specific parent on home page
  46. Do not duplicate posts with multiple categories in multiple loops
  47. Infinite Loop – WP_Query
  48. Posts are not looping through correctly
  49. How to wrap every 3 posts in a div (and close the last div too) [closed]
  50. Dividing the loop to style post differently
  51. Limit tags shown in post
  52. WordPress loop is not working
  53. How to create Loop code for Menu using WordPress?
  54. Add class to every other posts using get_posts
  55. Problem in replacing the_content with the_excerpt()
  56. Search AJAX Filters – Multiple Query Loops Into One Loop (Optimization)
  57. Wp Query : Order by distance lat,lon
  58. How to Add a cutsom slug to my custom author role
  59. Pagination contents not changing in Front page WordPress
  60. Display articles with a different template in the home page | Solved |
  61. How to output the taxonomies that are assigned to each custom post?
  62. Display all categories including sub categories under a list ul
  63. Looping through dummy posts and showing them in the main index.php
  64. Where does php code to load data go?
  65. Adding new divs with custom classes to products on WooCommerce shop page [closed]
  66. Latest posts feed with a specific post always first
  67. How to output values from a loop into a javascript array
  68. Return to the beginning of the results of a for loop
  69. How to count posts posts if they are in a separate content page?
  70. Exclude category and post from loop in custom category.php
  71. Thumbnail wouldn’t scale to size properly
  72. Making list of posts with chosen description
  73. How fix error in the WordPress loop?
  74. what’s the syntax for if the image exists get the image?
  75. how to remove replicating a tag inside loop?
  76. My query keeps looping infinitely ! how to stop it?
  77. Efficient way of querying for a “fallback” post?
  78. Retrieving specific images from Media Library
  79. Loop 1 user randomly
  80. Create a hierarchical loop at predefined markup requirements
  81. enumerating custom taxonomies?
  82. Custom Taxonomy Link Text Echo Name Not Slug
  83. Adding unique marketing messages between certain products whilst using isotope/Infinite Scroll
  84. Problems With Query and/or Template Part and/or PHP
  85. Two loops in one function
  86. How to display thumbnail if post is assigned one otherwise not
  87. Pagenav Not appearing on custom Template
  88. Error trying import one category on page
  89. Remove the_content From Loop
  90. Adding if statement to content for homepage
  91. Tables not showing divs and loop/php items
  92. Pagination in category.php not functioning
  93. Implement “No related posts for this entry” into the loop?
  94. For each loop will not append to the_content hook
  95. How to handle parent and child pages?
  96. How do I remove blog entries from home page Twenty Eleven child theme?
  97. How to create a loop that will display one post and stop?
  98. Pagination not working properly
  99. How to use a conditional statement in a post loop but not count towards the “posts_per_page” if false
  100. Saving meta box data from selected option’s value in database is not working