WordPress Post Archives Template Tag

The WordPress Post Archives template tag is a powerful way to display the blog post archives in a number of ways on your website. Using the <?php wp_get_archives(); ?> tag will achieve these results.

The parameters and values for the post archives template tag are shown in the table. Again, values that appear in bold are the default values set by WordPress. Here are just a few examples of what you can produce with this template tag:

• Display the titles of the last 15 posts you’ve made to your blog.

  
  



• Display the titles of the posts you’ve made in the past ten days.

  
  



• Display a monthly list of archives.

  
  

Most Common Parameters (Query-String) for class="code">wp_get_archives();

Parameter and Type	Possible Values	Example
type (string) Determines the type of archive to display.	monthly; class="code">daily; weekly; class="code">postbypost	<?php wp_get_archives(class="code">'type=postbypostclass="code">'); ?> Displays the titles of the most recent blog posts.
format (string) Formats the display of the links in the archive list.	html (surrounds links with <li> class="code"></li> tags);class="code">option (places archive list in drop-down list format); link (surrounds links with class="code"><link> </link> tags); custom (use your own HTML tags with before and after parameters)	<?php wp_get_archives(class="code">'format=htmlclass="code">'); ?> Displays the list of archive links in which each link is surrounded by the <li> </li> HTML tags.
limit (integer) Limits the number of archives to display.	If no value, all display.	<?php wp_get_archives(class="code">'limit=10class="code">'); ?> Displays the last ten archives in a list.
before (string) Places text or formatting before the link in the archive list when using the custom parameter.	No default	<?php wp_get_archives(class="code">'class="code">before=<strong>class="code">'); ?> Inserts the <strong> HTML tag before each link in the archive link list.
after (string) Inserts text or formatting after the link in the archive list when using the custom parameter.	No default	<?php wp_get_archives(class="code">'class="code">after=</strong>class="code">'); ?> Inserts the </strong> HTML tag after each link in the archive link list.
show_post_count (Boolean) Displays the number of posts in the archive. You’d use this if you use the 'class="code">type' of class="code">monthly.	true class="code">or 1; class="code">false or 0	<? wp_get_archives(class="code">'class="code">show_post_count=1class="code">'); ?> Displays the number of posts in each archive after each archive link.

Here are a couple examples of tags used to display blog post archives.

This tag displays a linked list of monthly archives (for example, January 2011, February 2011, and so on).

<?php wp_get_archives('type=monthly'); ?>

This tag displays a linked list of the 15 most recent blog posts:

<?php wp_get_archives('type=postbypost&limit=15'); ?>

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Source:http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/wordpress-post-archives-template-tag.html