wordpress post not showing with codex

Question

Ok bear with me I am new to wordpress. I am using the below code to grab the title of the posts but it is not working what am I doing wrong?

<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<?

the_title(); 
} // end while
} // end if
?>

Answer 1

You are mixing two different php syntax.

<?php if ( have_posts() ) : ?>
    <?php while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>
         // inside the loop here
         <?php the_title(); ?>
    <?php endwhile; ?> // end while
<?php endif; ?> // endif

Instead of using curly braces for control structures you can use the alternative syntax . This helps to make the code more readable in templates where you are using a mix of php and HTML

Answer 2

Have a look at your loop, it doesn't look like it's formatted correctly. It could look something like this

 <?php 
if ( have_posts() ) {
    while ( have_posts() ) {
        the_post(); 
        the_title();
    } // end while
} // end if
?>

Check out the docs for more info on the_loop https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop