Using WordPress ‘get_pages()’ PHP function

The get_pages() WordPress PHP function retrieves an array of pages or hierarchical post type items.

Usage

$pages = get_pages($args);

Custom Example:

$args = array(
  'child_of' => 3,
  'sort_order' => 'DESC',
  'sort_column' => 'post_date'
);
$pages = get_pages($args);

Parameters

$args (array|string) Optional: Array or string of arguments to retrieve pages.
- child_of (int): Page ID to return child and grandchild pages of. Default 0 (no restriction).
- sort_order (string): How to sort retrieved pages. Accepts ‘ASC’, ‘DESC’. Default ‘ASC’.
- sort_column (string): What columns to sort pages by, comma-separated. Default ‘post_title’.
- hierarchical (bool): Whether to return pages hierarchically. Default true.
- exclude (int): Array of page IDs to exclude.
- include (int): Array of page IDs to include.
- meta_key (string): Only include pages with this meta key.
- meta_value (string): Only include pages with this meta value. Requires $meta_key.
- authors (string): A comma-separated list of author IDs.
- parent (int): Page ID to return direct children of. Default -1 (no restriction).
- exclude_tree (string|int): Comma-separated string or array of page IDs to exclude.
- number (int): The number of pages to return. Default 0 (all pages).
- offset (int): The number of pages to skip before returning. Requires $number. Default 0.
- post_type (string): The post type to query. Default ‘page’.
- post_status (string|array): A comma-separated list or array of post statuses to include. Default ‘publish’.

More information

See WordPress Developer Resources: get_pages()

Examples

In this example, a dropdown list with all the pages is created. Note how you can grab the link for the page with a simple call to the function get_page_link() passing the ID of the page.

<select name="page-dropdown" onchange='document.location.href=this.options[this.selectedIndex].value;'>
  <option value=""> <?php echo esc_attr( __( 'Select page' ) ); ?></option>
  <?php
  $pages = get_pages();
  foreach ( $pages as $page ) {
    $option = '<option value="' . get_page_link( $page->ID ) . '">';
    $option .= $page->post_title;
    $option .= '</option>';
    echo $option;
  }
  ?>
</select>

Displaying child pages of the current page in post format

$mypages = get_pages( array(
  'child_of' => $post->ID,
  'sort_column' => 'post_date',
  'sort_order' => 'desc'
));
foreach( $mypages as $page ) {
  $content = $page->post_content;
  if ( ! $content ) // Check for empty page
    continue;
  $content = apply_filters( 'the_content', $content );
  ?>
  <h2><a href="<?php echo get_page_link( $page->ID ); ?>"><?php echo $page->post_title; ?></a></h2>
  <div class="entry"><?php echo $content; ?></div>
  <?php
} ?>

Key-value pairs with page ID and Page Title

This can be very useful for a dropdown list.

$pages = get_pages(array('sort_column' => 'post_date', 'sort_order' => 'desc'));

// build the key-value array
$selectpages = array();
foreach ($pages as $pkey => $page) {
  $selectpages[$pkey] = array(
    $page->ID => $page->post_title,
  );
}

// output
print_r($selectpages);

Displaying pages sorted by the number of comments

$pages_with_comments = get_pages(array(
  'sort_column' => 'comment_count',
  'sort_order' => 'desc'
));

foreach ($pages_with_comments as $page) {
  echo $page->post_title . ' - ' . $page->comment_count . ' comments<br>';
}

Displaying pages from a specific author

$author_id = 2; // replace with the desired author ID
$author_pages = get_pages(array(
  'authors' => $author_id
));

foreach ($author_pages as $page) {
  echo $page->post_title . ' by author ' . $author_id . '<br>';
}