This is a quick technical reference for web developers on how to display the author name in WordPress posts. Use the code below to show the author name anywhere on your WordPress website without the use of a plugin.
Best of all, you can do this without a plugin!
Often, website developers are asked to add certain metadata to WordPress blog posts. Most commonly, that means displaying the author’s name and the post’s publication date.
Most WordPress themes have some kind of templated approach for accomplishing this. Or, website owners choose to install plugins that make it easier to manage and add post metadata. This is why WordPress is such a great choice for business websites.
Surprisingly, sometimes these options aren’t suitable, or appealing. Therefore, I created a way to incorporate the Author and Last Modified Date using a single shortcode.
Importantly, you’ll need access to edit the website’s functions.php file.
How to display the Author name
Function: get_the_author()
The first step for displaying the author name in a WordPress post is to use this handy function.
This will return the author’s name for the current post (or a given post_id) that can be passed in as a function argument.
Now, it might also be nice to display the publish date for the post as well…
How to get the Last Updated Date
Function: get_the_modified_date()
This function is pretty self-explanatory – it’s the date when the post was last updated. For a given post_id, the most recent modified date is retrieved and returned in date format.
WordPress date formatting in PHP
Using PHP, it’s easy to display date formats in many ways. Here are some examples which can be used in conjunction with the aforementioned get_the_modified_date() function.
// To show: 12:49:00 PM
echo date('h:i:s P');
// To show: Monday, 11:04:09 AM
echo date('l, h:i:s A');
// To show: 10 January 2020, 08:45:00 PM
echo date('d F Y, h:i:s P');
Code to show author name in any WordPress post
Finally, ensure you have (one of) these functions in your theme’s functions.php file. This is the secret sauce for how to show the author name anywhere in WordPress content.
Then, add the corresponding shortcode into your WordPress blog post or page to display the author name.
Do you need help accomplishing this on your website? My WordPress development services are perfect for people who are short on time.
