Queries and Custom Fields

  • AndruC

    (@andruc)


    12 years, 7 months ago

    So, I’m trying to get certain posts with a very specific set of requirements. I have several custom fields, for City, State, and Country, as well as a flag for having a post be highlighted, similar to a sticky post, but as a custom field.

    EDIT: To clarify, the user has one location stored in $userLocation, so it needs to match either the City, the State, or the Country, it doesn’t matter what the meta_key is, only that the value matches. The highlighted key must exists and have a value of 1

    At first I modified the query like so:

    query_posts( array('post_type' => POST_TYPE,
	TAX_CAT => $term->slug,
	'ignore_sticky_posts' => 1,
	'posts_per_page' => 3,
	'meta_query' => array (
		'relation' => 'AND',
		array ( 'key' 	=> 'mpl_highlighted',
		'value' => 1),
		array ( 'value' => $userlocation ) ),
	'orderby' => 'rand' ) );

    POST_TYPE, and TAX_CAT are because my posts are of a custom type and taxonomy. The problem with this is that it doesn’t seem to be matching the meta requirements with an AND. It’s getting all posts in the user’s location OR all posts with mpl_highlighted = 1, as far as I can tell. The results don’t seem to change if I use ‘relation’ => ‘OR’.

    My next attempt was a custom SELECT query entirely:

    <?php $postids = $wpdb->get_col( $wpdb->prepare(
	"SELECT key2.post_id
		FROM <code>wp_postmeta</code> key1
		INNER JOIN <code>wp_postmeta</code> key2 ON key2.post_id = key1.post_id
		AND key1.meta_value = '". get_user_meta(get_current_user_id(), 'browse_loc', TRUE) ."'
		WHERE key2.meta_key = 'mpl_highlighted'
		AND key2.meta_value = 1
		ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 0, 3
	") ); ?>

    The problem here being that all highlighted posts that match their location are returned regardless of their post or taxonomy.

    Ideally, I’d like to use query_posts() but ensure I get the proper results. Could someone clarify to me how I’m using it incorrectly

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • NateJacobs

    (@natejacobs)

    12 years, 7 months ago

    I believe you will need to add 'compare' => 'how compare' to each meta_query array. WordPress does not automatically set a compare value, yet. See this trac ticket. You may also need to set a 'key' => 'some key' for your second meta array.

    Thread Starter AndruC

    (@andruc)

    12 years, 7 months ago

    The problem is that the second meta array’s value, location, could be associated with one of three different keys. Would that be written then, like this?

    query_posts( array('post_type' => POST_TYPE,
  TAX_CAT => $term->slug,
  'ignore_sticky_posts' => 1,
  'posts_per_page' => 3,
  'meta_query' => array (
    'compare' => '=',
    'relation' => 'AND',
    array ( 'key' => 'mpl_highlighted',
	    'value' => 1),
    array ( 'compare' => 'how compare',
            'relation' => 'OR',
      array ( 'key' => 'country',
              'value' => $userlocation ),
      array ( 'key' => 'state',
              'value' => $userlocation ),
      array ( 'key' => 'state',
              'value' => $userlocation ) ),
    'orderby' => 'rand' ) );
    Thread Starter AndruC

    (@andruc)

    12 years, 7 months ago

    To clarify, the post to be displayed requires both that its mpl_highlighted field has a value of 1, AND that the user’s location exists as a value of either country, state, or city.

    NateJacobs

    (@natejacobs)

    12 years, 7 months ago

    Sorry, for the confusion…I didn’t mean to add 'compare' => 'how compare' verbatim. The value of the 'compare' key should be whatever comparison operator you would like. And you fixed that right above 'relation' =>

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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