Reply To: Validate Front End Form Submission – Unique Values only

• John Huebner

• May 20, 2020 at 11:42 pm

// your should only be testing the vacancy field
// insert the field key of your field here
add_filter('acf/validate_value/key=field_YYYYYYY', 'acf_duplicate_candidate_application', 10, 4);

function acf_duplicate_candidate_application($valid, $value, $field, $input) {
  // acf now uses $_POST['_acf_post_id']
  // the other $_POST indexes may not be available on the front end
  if (!$valid || !isset($_POST['_acf_post_id'])) {
    return $valid;
  }
  $post_id = intval($_POST['_acf_post_id']);
  $post_type = get_post_type($post_id);
  
  // to get pother values submitted you must look in $_POST['acf'][$field_key]
  $candidate_email = $_POST['acf']['field_XXXXXXX']; // field key of email field
  
  $args = array(
    'post_type' => $post_type,
    'post_status' => 'publish, draft, trash', // double check possible post statuses 
    'post__not_in' => array($post_id),
    'meta_query' => array(
      'relation' => 'AND',
      array(
        'key' => 'candidate_email', // field name
        'value' => $candidate_email
      ),
      array(
        'key' => 'vacancy_applied_for', // field name
        'value' => $value
      )
    )
  );
  $query = new WP_Query($args);
  if (count($query->posts)){
    return 'You have already applied for this vacancy.';
  }
  return true;
}