Reply To: Filter query by custom field and sort orderby another custom field

• juliusbangert

• December 6, 2017 at 5:02 am

Thanks for your response @matthewmcvickar.
My date field is a custom field created in ACF, not the post’s publish date.

So I tried a print_r() of the $news_query but I’m really not sure what I’m looking for. ( nor is my knowledge of mysql all that good ).
I’m pasting the output here in the hope that you might spot the problem.

WP_Query Object
(
    [query] => Array
        (
            [post_type] => news
            [post_status] => publish
            [posts_per_page] => 12
            [meta_query] => Array
                (
                    [relation] => AND
                    [0] => Array
                        (
                            [key] => archive
                            [value] => 1
                        )

                    [1] => Array
                        (
                            [key] => featured_article
                            [value] => 0
                        )

                )

            [meta_key] => date
            [orderby] => meta_value_num
            [order] => DESC
        )

    [query_vars] => Array
        (
            [post_type] => news
            [post_status] => publish
            [posts_per_page] => 12
            [meta_query] => Array
                (
                    [relation] => AND
                    [0] => Array
                        (
                            [key] => archive
                            [value] => 1
                        )

                    [1] => Array
                        (
                            [key] => featured_article
                            [value] => 0
                        )

                )

            [meta_key] => date
            [orderby] => meta_value_num
            [order] => DESC
            [error] => 
            [m] => 
            [p] => 0
            [post_parent] => 
            [subpost] => 
            [subpost_id] => 
            [attachment] => 
            [attachment_id] => 0
            [name] => 
            [static] => 
            [pagename] => 
            [page_id] => 0
            [second] => 
            [minute] => 
            [hour] => 
            [day] => 0
            [monthnum] => 0
            [year] => 0
            [w] => 0
            [category_name] => 
            [tag] => 
            [cat] => 
            [tag_id] => 
            [author] => 
            [author_name] => 
            [feed] => 
            [tb] => 
            [paged] => 0
            [meta_value] => 
            [preview] => 
            [s] => 
            [sentence] => 
            [title] => 
            [fields] => 
            [menu_order] => 
            [embed] => 
            [ignore_sticky_posts] => 
            [suppress_filters] => 
            [cache_results] => 1
            [update_post_term_cache] => 1
            [lazy_load_term_meta] => 1
            [update_post_meta_cache] => 1
            [nopaging] => 
            [comments_per_page] => 50
            [no_found_rows] => 
        )
    [meta_query] => WP_Meta_Query Object
        (
            [queries] => Array
                (
                    [0] => Array
                        (
                            [key] => date
                        )

                    [1] => Array
                        (
                            [0] => Array
                                (
                                    [key] => archive
                                    [value] => 1
                                )

                            [1] => Array
                                (
                                    [key] => featured_article
                                    [value] => 0
                                )

                            [relation] => AND
                        )

                    [relation] => AND
                )

            [relation] => AND
            [meta_table] => wp_postmeta
            [meta_id_column] => post_id
            [primary_table] => wp_posts
            [primary_id_column] => ID
            [table_aliases:protected] => Array
                (
                    [0] => wp_postmeta
                    [1] => mt1
                    [2] => mt2
                )

            [clauses:protected] => Array
                (
                    [wp_postmeta] => Array
                        (
                            [key] => date
                            [compare] => =
                            [alias] => wp_postmeta
                            [cast] => CHAR
                        )

                    [mt1] => Array
                        (
                            [key] => archive
                            [value] => 1
                            [compare] => =
                            [alias] => mt1
                            [cast] => CHAR
                        )

                    [mt2] => Array
                        (
                            [key] => featured_article
                            [value] => 0
                            [compare] => =
                            [alias] => mt2
                            [cast] => CHAR
                        )

                )

            [has_or_relation:protected] => 
        )

    [date_query] => 
    [request] => SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS  wp_posts.ID FROM wp_posts  INNER JOIN wp_postmeta ON ( wp_posts.ID = wp_postmeta.post_id )  INNER JOIN wp_postmeta AS mt1 ON ( wp_posts.ID = mt1.post_id )  INNER JOIN wp_postmeta AS mt2 ON ( wp_posts.ID = mt2.post_id ) WHERE 1=1  AND ( 
  wp_postmeta.meta_key = 'date' 
  AND 
  ( 
    ( mt1.meta_key = 'archive' AND mt1.meta_value = '1' ) 
    AND 
    ( mt2.meta_key = 'featured_article' AND mt2.meta_value = '0' )
  )
) AND wp_posts.post_type = 'news' AND ((wp_posts.post_status = 'publish')) GROUP BY wp_posts.ID ORDER BY wp_posts.menu_order, wp_postmeta.meta_value+0 DESC LIMIT 0, 12
    [posts] => Array
        (
        ........
        )
)

I’ve edited some of the empty entries out of it because it was even longer.