Reply To: How do I query a repeater which uses recurring dates?

• Aminta

• April 3, 2017 at 8:17 am

Hi @britta , please, can you post your complete solution to @b1naryb0y original question ? I can’t understand what you made to get working.

Me, I had to take an alternative approach.

The following code will never work for repeater fields:

$args = array (
		    'post_type' => 'event',
		    'meta_query' => array(
			    'relation'		=> 'AND',
				array(
			        'key'		=> 'event_dates_%_start_date',
			        'compare'	=> '<=',
			        'value'		=> '20150524',
			    ),
			     array(
			        'key'		=> 'event_dates_%_end_date',
			        'compare'	=> '>=',
			        'value'		=> '20150524',
			    )
		    ),
		);

As suggested by @mediawerk , event_dates_0_start_date AND event_dates_1_end_date accomplish the start before testdate and end after testdate.

So I replaced it with:

array(  
              'key' => 'opening_dates',
              'value' => 20150524,
              'compare' => 'LIKE'
             ),
			

The 'opening_dates' postmeta field contains all the single dates resulting from the repeating “start_date"/"end_date" couple and it was created with this code of mine placed in functions.php using the "acf/save_post" hook:

	function create_opening_dates_array_when_saving_post_with_repeating_start_end_dates($post_id) {
	
	
		// bail early the post type to apply
		// src: https://support.advancedcustomfields.com/forums/topic/acfsave_post-action/
		$post_type = get_post_type($post_id);
			if ($post_type != 'event' ) {
				return;
			}
			
			
			// not used here
			$fields = $_POST['acf']; 
			
			// $intervals will contain the interval couples: ['single_interval']=> array("20170301", "20170320")
			$intervals = array();
			
			
			// 
			// loop repeater fields
			if( have_rows('event_dates') ):
			
			 	// loop through the rows of data
			    while ( have_rows('event_dates') ) : the_row();
			
			       // for each row, get the "from" "to" couple and save it in the "single_interval" key (array) in the intervals array
			       $from =  get_sub_field('start_date', false, false);
			       $to =  get_sub_field('end_date', false, false);
			       $intervals[]['single_interval'] = array($from, $to);

			
			    endwhile;
			
			else :
			
			    // no rows found
			
			endif;
			 
		// here will be saved the opening date vales	
		$final_array = array();

		 // loop the array containing the couples of intervals
		 foreach($intervals as $single_interval) {
			 
			 // $intervals = array("20170301", "20170320")
			 foreach($single_interval as $intervals) {
			 	
			 	// fill in missing in-between dates...
				$arrays_of_single_dates = getDatesFromRange($intervals[0], $intervals[1]);
				
				// loop the resulting array and save each single value in the final array...
				foreach($arrays_of_single_dates as $single) {
					$final_array[] = intval($single); // from string to integer
				}
			}
		
		};
	  // var_dump($final_array);
	  
	  
	  // create or update a meta_key field called "opening_dates" and set as meta_value the $final_array containing all the opening dates
	  update_post_meta( $post_id, 'opening_dates', $final_array);

	 // var_dump($final_array);	  
	};

	
	add_action('acf/save_post', 'create_opening_dates_array_when_saving_post_with_repeating_start_end_dates', 1);

I’ve got the getDatesFromRange function from here.

I wonder if @Elliot knows a simpler and better performing solution anyway…