Title: Difficulty using a custom field
Last modified: October 16, 2019

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# Difficulty using a custom field

 *  Resolved [mattgcn](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mattgcn/)
 * (@mattgcn)
 * [6 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/difficulty-using-a-custom-field/)
 * Hello! I am trying to configure the plugin to pull from a custom field used by
   the Powerpress podcasting plugin with the id of “powerpress_episode_title_podcast”.
   I can’t seem to figure it out. Is use of fields created outside of Advanced Custom
   Fields supported? Using the [ and ](https://codex.wordpress.org/and) seems to
   just generate a blank space even if the field is in use which makes me think 
   it’s not being called correctly

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

 *  Plugin Author [Joe Dolson](https://wordpress.org/support/users/joedolson/)
 * (@joedolson)
 * [6 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/difficulty-using-a-custom-field/#post-12036962)
 * First, is that the correct name of the custom field? You should be able to pull
   the value of any custom field as long as you have the name right. That looks 
   a little suspect to me, given that most plug-ins define custom fields using a
   leading underscore, so I’d have expected that field to be `_powerpress_episode_title_podcast`.
 *  Thread Starter [mattgcn](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mattgcn/)
 * (@mattgcn)
 * [6 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/difficulty-using-a-custom-field/#post-12037034)
 * That could very well be the case! I was trying to figure out how to pull the 
   name of the custom field and got that from the ID on the post page, but I will
   try it with the leading underscore and report back.
 * Thanks!
 *  Thread Starter [mattgcn](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mattgcn/)
 * (@mattgcn)
 * [6 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/difficulty-using-a-custom-field/#post-12040613)
 * Hmmm that doesn’t seem to be it either. Using the double square brackets yields
   a blank space still with the leading underscore. I suppose this comes down to
   not knowing the best way to find how a plugin’s custom field is defined, but 
   I can’t seem to find that with a cursory Google.
 *  Thread Starter [mattgcn](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mattgcn/)
 * (@mattgcn)
 * [6 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/difficulty-using-a-custom-field/#post-12040700)
 * Looking closer at the field in phpMyAdmin, it seems that the field is contained…
   within the “enclosure” field. This is what the value of the field is for an example
   podcast episode:
 *     ```
       http://futuresushi.agrius.feralhosting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/elitefullrestore/EliteFullRestore-Episode001-RotomPokedexIsMySon.mp3
       80065514
       audio/mpeg
       a:4:{s:8:"duration";s:8:"00:51:26";s:13:"episode_title";s:24:"Rotom Pokédex Is My Son";s:10:"episode_no";s:1:"1";s:8:"category";s:1:"2";}
       ```
   
 * The value I’m looking for in this case is the episode title as listed shortly
   after “episode_title” is placed in the bottom of the code there.
 *  Plugin Author [Joe Dolson](https://wordpress.org/support/users/joedolson/)
 * (@joedolson)
 * [6 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/difficulty-using-a-custom-field/#post-12043655)
 * That’s a serialized array value, then, which makes it a bit harder to get out–
   you can’t get it directly, so you’ll need to write some extra PHP to access it.
 * Here’s an example showing you how you can manipulate the output of custom template
   shortcodes: [https://github.com/joedolson/plugin-extensions/blob/master/wp-to-twitter/custom-field-content.php](https://github.com/joedolson/plugin-extensions/blob/master/wp-to-twitter/custom-field-content.php)
 * You’d need to access the array to get the title field, e.g.
 *     ```
       $value = get_post_meta( $post_ID, 'name_of_custom_field', true );
       $title = $value['episode_title'];
       ```
   
 * There’s probably a function in your podcasting plug-in to fetch this value, but
   I don’t know what it is.
 *  Thread Starter [mattgcn](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mattgcn/)
 * (@mattgcn)
 * [6 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/difficulty-using-a-custom-field/#post-12044381)
 * Hmm I will try to ask the Powerpress devs how to do that but I don’t have my 
   hopes up. At the very least, I have the information now to realize this problem
   is not within the scope of your plugin and I can continue my support elsewhere(
   unless you happen to know how to structure the PHP call because I’m at a loss
   so far).
 * Thank you so much for your help and patience with someone not too tech-savvy,
   it’s greatly appreciated! 🙂
 *  Thread Starter [mattgcn](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mattgcn/)
 * (@mattgcn)
 * [6 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/difficulty-using-a-custom-field/#post-12044587)
 * So far working with the function there as you gave it, $value[‘episode_title’]
   fails to read the intended value correct, defaults to a value of “0” and outputs
   h (the first character in the URL string, the first part of enclosure) by default.
   If you would know how I could search to find useful results on how to get values
   out of an array it would be a huge help!
 *  Thread Starter [mattgcn](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mattgcn/)
 * (@mattgcn)
 * [6 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/difficulty-using-a-custom-field/#post-12044613)
 * I followed the guide and extracted the value using substring searches. And it
   worked! So thank you so much!!
 * The only thing I need now is to pretty up the links but the PRO service has too
   many features I won’t use to go for it just now :X if you ever make a PRO-Lite
   that just adds Twitter cards I’d be a sure buyer
    -  This reply was modified 6 years, 7 months ago by [mattgcn](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mattgcn/).
 *  [Fanaticweb](https://wordpress.org/support/users/fanaticweb/)
 * (@fanaticweb)
 * [6 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/difficulty-using-a-custom-field/#post-12315112)
 * I think I will be facing similar challenges knowing the theme I’m using is based
   on custom posts and custom taxonomies that generates arrays input by users (had
   to comment to subscribe to notifications), I think the Pro version will be a 
   wise investment

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

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## Tags

 * [arrays](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/arrays/)
 * [custom posts](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/custom-posts/)
 * [taxonomy](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/taxonomy/)

 * 9 replies
 * 1 participant
 * Last reply from: [Fanaticweb](https://wordpress.org/support/users/fanaticweb/)
 * Last activity: [6 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/difficulty-using-a-custom-field/#post-12315112)
 * Status: resolved