Reply To: Understanding ACF data storage

• iamrobertandrews

• March 30, 2023 at 8:37 am

@hube2 ,

Ages ago, you posted this code…

<?php 
  
  // this action is run by ACF whenever a field is deleted
  // and is called for every field in a field group when a field group is deleted
  add_action('acf/delete_field', 'delete_acf_content_on_delete_field');

  function delete_acf_content_on_delete_field($field) {
    // runs when acf deletes a field
    // find all occurences of the field key in all tables and delete them
    // and the custom field associated with them
    global $wpdb;
    // remove any tables from this array that you don't want to check
    $tables = array('options', 'postmeta', 'termmeta', 'usermeta', 'commentmeta');
    foreach ($tables as $table) {
      $key_field = 'meta_key';
      $value_field = 'meta_value';
      if ($table == 'options') {
        $key_field = 'option_name';
        $value_field = 'option_value';
      }
      $table = $wpdb->{$table};
      // this query gets all key fields matching the acf key reference field
      $query = 'SELECT DISTINCT('.$key_field.')
                FROM '.$table.'
                WHERE '.$value_field.' = "'.$field['key'].'"';
      $results = $wpdb->get_col($query);
      if (!count($results)) {
        // no content found in this table
        continue;
      }
      // loop through keys and construct list of meta_key/option_names to delete
      $keys = array();
      foreach ($results as $key) {
        $keys[] = $key; // delete acf field key reference
        $keys[] = substr($key, 1); // delete acf field value
      }
      // do escping of all values.... just in case
      $keys = $wpdb->_escape($keys);
      // delete all of the content
      $query = 'DELETE FROM '.$table.'
                WHERE '.$key_field.' IN ("'.implode('","', $keys).'")';
      $wpdb->query($query);
    } // end foreach table
  }

?>

For me, it doesn’t seem to fire when I delete a field (and re-save the group).

Any reason why, in 2023, that wouldn’t work?

Thanks.