.first() vs. .one() in craft 3

Question

I'm confused about the new .one() argument in craft 3

If I want to grab all entries I write:

{% for entry in craft.entries.section('thing').all() %}
  {{ entry.title }}
{% endfor %}

Alls is nice and well. 20 something entries are returned.

But I want to fetch only the latest entry so instead of .all() I use .one() (which was formerly .first())

But when I write:

{% for entry in craft.entries.section('thing').one() %}
  {{ entry.title }}
{% endfor %}

It returns the error:

Impossible to access an attribute ("title") on a string variable ("3").

When I write:

{% for entry in craft.entries.section('portfolioEntry').limit(1).all() %}
  {{ entry.title }}
{% endfor %}

Then it works. But that's not the right way, is it?

Answer 1

.all() returns a collection of elements, which you can loop through with a for loop.

.one() returns a single element, so you cannot use a for loop to access it.

In this case you should just store the entry like:

{% set entry = craft.entries.section('thing').one() %} and then access {{ entry.title }} afterwards.

(Also keep in mind that entry is automatically populated for section URLs, so you may want to use another variable name)