WordPress: How To Display the_title as a Link

Question

I'm having trouble displaying a title as a link in a WordPress function.

If I code it like this:

function my_popular_posts($count) {
    $query = new WP_Query( array( 
    'orderby' => 'comment_count',
    'order' => 'DESC',
    'posts_per_page' => $count));
    if($query->have_posts()) {
        echo '<ul>';
        while($query->have_posts()) : $query->the_post();
**THIS LINE --> echo '<li><a href='.get_permalink().'> .the_title(). </a></li>';
        endwhile;
        echo '</ul>';
    } else {
        echo "<p>No popular posts found<p>"; 
    }
}

At run-time, the link displays as ".the_title()"

If I code it this way:

echo '<li><a href='.get_permalink().'>'.the_title().'</a></li>';

It will display the title, but not as a link.

Any Ideas? Your help will be appreciated.

Thnx!

Answer 1

the_title output contents itself. You need to use get_the_title() which returns the content

Try this:

echo '<li><a href="' . get_permalink() . '">' . get_the_title() . '</a></li>';

Answer 2

I think you just need to use double quotes for href="" to let the link work

echo '<li><a href="'.get_permalink().'">'.the_title().'</a></li>';

Learn more here

Answer 3

You are missing closing quotation marks on that line.

Note the addition of the closing quotes:

    while($query->have_posts()) : $query->the_post();
        echo '<li><a href=' . get_permalink() . '>' . get_the_title() . '</a></li>';
    endwhile;

Additionally, you markup should include quotations around the link url, as edited below:

echo '<li><a href="' . get_permalink() . '">' . get_the_title() . '</a></li>';