Why does 'get_the_ID' work outside of the loop?

Question

on WordPress Developer Resources website's page related to get_the_ID() function it says:

Retrieves the ID of the current item in the WordPress Loop

But I can use it outside of the loop and it works without using get_queried_object_id() which is apparently recommended in such a case.

Why is that?

(little code snippet to let you understand what I mean):

get_header(); echo get_the_ID(); // Shows the id of currently displayed page. // Here comes the loop! $some_query_args... $some_query_loop { echo get_the_ID(); // Shows the id of queried page/post. } get_footer();

Caleb · Accepted Answer · 2024-07-30 19:14:33Z

The get_the_ID() function uses the global $post variable, which outside of the loop is sometimes equal to get_queried_object_id(). Within the loop, the $post variable is set to the current post within the loop.

As to why get_queried_object_id() is recommended outside of the loop, is because it does not use the global $post variable, so is less likely to be corrupted by loops.

note that sometimes the queried object might not be a post, e.g. on an author archive or a term archive it might actually be a WP_Term or WP_User object instead of a WP_Post object. get_the_ID will always return a post ID if there is a "current post" though — Tom J Nowell
– Tom J Nowell ♦, Commented Jul 30, 2024 at 19:24
That's amazing, gentlemen!. That basically answers my question. — Daniel
– Daniel, Commented Jul 30, 2024 at 19:59

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