Zero value for posts_per_page value in wp_query custom instance and for 'Blog pages show at most' option

[alexvorn2]

To show no posts if the posts_per_page value is 0.

Currently for custom instances of wp_query, if the value is 0 then this is changed with the value from posts_per_page option from the database. "get_options( 'posts_per_page' )"

For home page if we set value 0 on the settings page, in wp-admin/options-reading.php, after the saves are changed, this value is changed to 1.

I think for both cases if the posts per page value is 0 then no posts should not display.

What's the use case of having a query which should return 0 results?

Replying to ocean90:

What's the use case of having a query which should return 0 results?

To hide all posts, for example for a short period of time if the site is under construction...

Why would you write a WP_Query by hand that wants zero posts? Why not just comment out the code that displays posts or something

A more valid use case for this might be if you're passing the post_per_page value through absint() or similar and zero gets returned.

I can follow the logic of -1 = unlimited, or 1 = 1, 2 = 2 and so on. So it's odd that we say, "Oh, by the way, 0 doesn't equal 0 here, it actually equals this other thing over there."

It kind of stands to reason that if I pass 0 I'd expect to get 0 results, intentional or not. Just sayin'.

I agree with @DrewAPicture's logic on how zero is handled relative to how -1, 1, 2, 3, etc. is handled. Wasted so much time trying to figure out what's wrong with my code because of this unintuitive behavior.

I agree that it's a bit odd to create a WP_Query with posts_per_page=0, but I also think there's no reason we shouldn't support it. The culprit appears to be https://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/4.2.2/src/wp-includes/query.php#L2460. Something like 0 === $q['posts_per_page'] || '0' === $q['posts_per_page'] is probably going to work, but this needs unit tests.