Wordpress: Check if there are previous posts before displaying link

Question

I'm using the following code to display a 'previous posts' link on my Wordpress blog.

     <nav>
            <ul>
                <li><?php previous_posts_link('Newer Entries &raquo;') ?></li>
</ul
</nav>

Problem is, when there ARN'T any previous posts, while the link doesn't display, I still get

<nav>
            <ul>
                <li><</li>
</ul
</nav>

Printed out. Is there an if() statement I could wrap around it all so it checks if there are any previous posts, and only prints it out if there are?

Answer 1

You can try something like this

<?php
    if($link = get_previous_posts_link()) {
        echo '<ul><li>'.$link.'</li></ul>';
?>

get_previous_posts_link returns null (falsy value) if there isn't any previous post.