Title: User Query help – Listing Authors
Last modified: August 21, 2016

---

# User Query help – Listing Authors

 *  Resolved [andy_woz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/andy_woz/)
 * (@andy_woz)
 * [12 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/user-query-help-listing-authors/)
 * I have a select menu for a search function populated by a custom query ordered
   by user last name that is working fine but I have a clunky exclude to stop the
   admin user being listed:
 *     ```
       <select name="author" id="select-author">
       <option value="">Select Author</option>
   
       <?php
       $excluded = "1"; //exclude users by ID
       $authors = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * FROM $wpdb->users INNER JOIN $wpdb->usermeta ON ($wpdb->users.ID = $wpdb->usermeta.user_id) WHERE $wpdb->usermeta.meta_key = 'last_name' AND $wpdb->usermeta.user_id NOT IN ($excluded) ORDER BY $wpdb->usermeta.meta_value ASC");
       							      foreach($authors as $author):
       $select .='<option value="'. $author -> user_nicename .'">' . $author -> display_name . '</option>';
       endforeach;
       print $select;
       ?>
   
       </select>
       ```
   
 * At some point I’m sure we are going to have more users and I don’t want to be
   excluding them based on their ID but I can make do by limiting the users to all
   those with the author role. I don’t see user_role currently listed in the resulting
   array for $authors. What I’d like to do is to add to the query and instead of
   excluding user ID’s have only users with the role of author in the results. What’s
   the best way to do this? I’ve tried a few things but nothing works so far……
 * Thanks!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  Moderator [bcworkz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bcworkz/)
 * (@bcworkz)
 * [12 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/user-query-help-listing-authors/#post-4329621)
 * I’m unsure of the proper mySQL query to do this, but as it happens [WP_User_Query](http://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_User_Query)
   has a ‘who’ argument that will query for all authors. You could use this to get
   your authors instead of `$wpdb->get_results()`.
 *  Thread Starter [andy_woz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/andy_woz/)
 * (@andy_woz)
 * [12 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/user-query-help-listing-authors/#post-4329627)
 * Interesting, thanks bcworkz I’ll certainly give it a shot.
 * I have a duplicate thread here [http://wordpress.org/support/topic/custom-query-list-users-by-last-name?replies=5](http://wordpress.org/support/topic/custom-query-list-users-by-last-name?replies=5)
   I’m going to consolidate the two as one of them was an error (I received a Bad
   Gateway error when posting and assumed it didn’t get through…)
 * If anyone has any other input can we move it over to the other thread?
 * Thanks.
 * A
 *  Thread Starter [andy_woz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/andy_woz/)
 * (@andy_woz)
 * [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/user-query-help-listing-authors/#post-4329829)
 * Ok I got this down, mostly thanks to this post:
    [http://wpsmith.net/2012/wp/an-introduction-to-wp_user_query-class/](http://wpsmith.net/2012/wp/an-introduction-to-wp_user_query-class/)
 * The upshot is that you can do this with WP_user_query but it won’t let you order
   by last name without some modifications.
 * Set up action in functions.php to allow you substitute the default order by user
   ID with user last_name:
 *     ```
       add_action( 'pre_user_query', 'wps_pre_user_query' );
       /*
       * Modify the WP_User_Query appropriately
       *
       * Checks for the proper query to modify and changes the default user_login for $wpdb->usermeta.meta_value
       *
       * @param WP_User_Query Object $query User Query object before query is executed
       */
       function wps_pre_user_query( $query ) {
       global $wpdb;
       if ( isset( $query->query_vars['query_id'] ) && 'wps_last_name' == $query->query_vars['query_id'] )
       $query->query_orderby = str_replace( 'user_login', "$wpdb->usermeta.meta_value", $query->query_orderby );
       }
       ```
   
 * Then construct you wp_user_query object like so (outputting as a select menu 
   labeled last_name/first_name):
 *     ```
       <select name="author" id="select-author">
       	<option value="0">Select Author</option>
       <?php
       	// prepare arguments
       	$args = array(
       	'meta_key' => 'last_name',
       	'query_id' => 'wps_last_name',
       	'role' => 'author'
       	);
   
       	// Create the WP_User_Query object
       	$author_query = new WP_User_Query( $args );
   
       	$authors = $author_query->get_results(); 
   
       	foreach($authors as $author):
       	$select .='<option value="'. $author -> user_nicename .'">' . $author -> last_name . ' ' . $author -> first_name . '</option>';
       	endforeach;
       	print $select;
   
       ?>
       	</select>
       ```
   
 * Hope this helps someone, sometime. Let me know if it does.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

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## Tags

 * [list users](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/list-users/)
 * [sql-query](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/sql-query/)

 * In: [Hacks](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/plugins-and-hacks/hacks/)
 * 3 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [andy_woz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/andy_woz/)
 * Last activity: [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/user-query-help-listing-authors/#post-4329829)
 * Status: resolved

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