Reply To: wp_query Orderby multiple meta doesnt work

• John Huebner

• January 19, 2023 at 11:38 am

Query clauses have a few issues that are not documented and you only find them by finding theme.

Query clauses do not work well with nested meta queries. Honestly, I don’t remember if they work at all with nested meta queries.

Query clauses 100% do not work with a nested query that has multiple meta keys associated with it.

// order by true/false field, desc and then date field asc
$meta_query = array(
    'relation' => 'AND',
    'qw1' => array(
        // it does not matter what value this field is
        // it is only used for ordering
        'key' => 'activi_datumperiode',
        'compare' => 'EXISTS'
    ),
    'qw2' => array(
      // note that ACF fields not stored as dates in DB
      // they are text values (or number)
      'key' => 'activi_datum',
      'value' => date('Ymd'),
      'compare' => '>='
    ),
);

$orderby = array('qw1' => 'DESC', 'qw2' => 'ASC');