Reply To: dynamically generate subfield content

• DACrosby, LLC

• February 14, 2015 at 8:17 pm

This has been bugging me for quite a while, but I think I’ve finally cracked it. It was almost disappointingly simple in the end – $value needs to be an array.

add_filter('acf/load_value/key=field_54aa5b3b008b0',  'afc_load_my_repeater_value', 10, 3);
function afc_load_my_repeater_value($value, $post_id, $field) {
	if ($post_id === false) {
		$value	= array();
		$value[] = array(
			field_54aa5beb008b1 => 'Hours',
			field_54aa5c25008b2 => 1
		);
		$value[] = array(
			field_54aa5beb008b1 => 'Minutes'
		);
		$value[] = array(
			field_54aa5beb008b1 => 'Seconds'
		);
	}
	return $value;
}

This case is pretty straight forward; I have one repeater field field_54aa5b3b008b0 that has two text fields inside it (field_54aa5beb008b1 and field_54aa5c25008b2). I imagine the same setup will apply to more in-depth scenarios as well with some tweaking.

Step 1. Hook into acf/load_value on your repeater field. You can use type/key/name as desired here.

Step 2. Check if the $post_id is set or not. If you want to modify the values of existing posts as well you wouldn’t need to, but here I want to set default values for new posts only.

Step 3. Set $value to your array of default values. Above, I have 3 rows by default on new posts. Each row has two values – ‘unit of time’ and ‘amount of time’. The ‘unit of time’ values are set to “Hours”, “Minutes” and “Seconds”. The ‘amount of time’ value on the “Hours” row I have set default to 1. In the other rows, I didn’t want the second value to be set by default, so it’s omitted – if omitted, ACF uses the default value set in the admin (or just blank).

Step 4. Return the $value. Make sure you always return it – even if you haven’t modified it.

———– NOTES
– I’m using ACF Pro 5.1.8, but it should work in other versions as well (using the proper hooks as needed).
– The sub fields appear to be required to the the exact field key – field name and type haven’t worked for me.
– Above, I’m setting a static set of values as my defaults. You could certainly call a function or otherwise dynamically load an array into $value from elsewhere as well – just need to make sure it uses the key for sub fields.
– If you’re not sure how the array should be set up, just print out an array from an existing repeater in the wp-admin like this:

add_filter('acf/load_value/key=field_54aa5b3b008b0',  'afc_load_my_repeater_value', 10, 3);
function afc_load_my_repeater_value($value, $post_id, $field) {
	echo print_r($value);
	return $value;
}

This will print out the repeater value from an existing post. Save the post with some rows in your repeater and you’ll see a guide of how to set up the array of defaults.