WordPress: display only the first post of The Loop in full

One of the most frequently asked questions by WordPress web developers is: "How can I display only the first post of The Loop in full?". In this article we'll address this question by providing a simple solution to this problem.

The WordPress object that controls the behavior of the Read More feature is called $more and returns two values: -1 and 0. With the former value the default behavior is suppressed, while with the latter is preserved.

Here's how you can use it:

<?php global $more; $more = -1;?>
<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post();?>
<article class="post">
	<time datetime="<?php the_time('c');?>"><?php the_time('F j, Y');?></time>		  			  
	<h2 class="post-title"
	><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" title="<?php the_title(); ?>" rel="bookmark">
	<?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>

	<div class="post-content">
	<?php if ($more == -1) {
			  the_content();
			  $more = 0; 
		  } else { 
			  the_content(__('Continue Reading'));
		  }
	 ?>
	</div>
</article>
<?php endwhile; else: ?>
<div class="no-results">
	<p>Nothing.</p>
</div>
<?php endif; ?>

Now your WordPress Loop will display the first post in full and the other ones with the default Read More link. Just a word of caution: using this feature on your homepage can be troublesome, especially if your latest post is very long.