Reply To: How to store a repeater row number as a value in another field

• John Huebner

• June 29, 2021 at 1:30 am

I do something similar to the unique id plugin you found, but I do it manually. What I do is that I create a text field in each row, then I create a filter for this field to make it read only. Then I generate a value for this field, I generally do this in JavaScript but it can be done using an acf/save_post filter. The main issue with doing it based on the number of rows but if I had to… assuming that new fields can be added and fields can be moved.

add_action('acf/save_post', 'repeater_unique_row_id_on_count');
function repeater_unique_row_id_on_count($post_id) {
  if (have_rows('your-repeater-field')) }
    // first loop over repeater to get existing IDs
    $existing_ids = array();
    while (have_rows('your-repeater-field')) {
      the_row();
      if (get_sub_field('your-id-field')) {
        // note that this field should be a read only field
        // you could also hide this field using custom admin CSS
        $existing_ids[] = intval(get_sub_field('your-id-field');
      }
    } // when while have_rows
    // you may need to reset rows, I don't know, next line may not be needed
    reset_rows()
    // second loop to set any missing IDs
    $count = 1;
    while (have_rows('your-repeater-field')) {
      the_row();
      if (!get_sub_field('your-id-field')) {
        // id field is empty
        while (in_array($count, $existing_ids)) {
          // inc count until it does not already exist
          // this will cause count to skip anything that exists
          $count++;
        } // end while
        // record ID and update sub fiele
        $existing_ids[] = $count;
        update_sub_field('your-id-field', $count);
      } // end if empty id
    } // end while have_rows
  } // end if have_rows
} // end function