Incrementing Number on Each Post

Do you want to display an incrementing number on each of your WordPress post? While there’s probably a plugin for this, we have created a quick code snippet that you can use to add incrementing number of each post in WordPress.

Instructions:

All you have to do is add this code to your theme’s functions.php file or in a site-specific plugin:

function updateNumbers() {
  global $wpdb;
  $querystr = "SELECT $wpdb->posts.* FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE $wpdb->posts.post_status = 'publish' AND $wpdb->posts.post_type = 'post' ";
$pageposts = $wpdb->get_results($querystr, OBJECT);
  $counts = 0 ;
  if ($pageposts):
    foreach ($pageposts as $post):
      setup_postdata($post);
      $counts++;
      add_post_meta($post->ID, 'incr_number', $counts, true);
      update_post_meta($post->ID, 'incr_number', $counts);
    endforeach;
  endif;
}  
 
add_action ( 'publish_post', 'updateNumbers' );
add_action ( 'deleted_post', 'updateNumbers' );
add_action ( 'edit_post', 'updateNumbers' );

Add this second code snippet in the index.php file of your WordPress theme.

<?php 
          echo get_post_meta($post->ID,'incr_number',true); 
?>

Note: If this is your first time adding code snippets in WordPress, then please refer to our guide on how to properly add code snippets in WordPress, so you don’t accidentally break your site.

If you liked this code snippet, please consider checking out our other articles on the site like: 9 best WordPress accordion plugins and how to set up download tracking in WordPress with Google Analytics.