Exclude posts from main loop based on ACF field value

• juxprose

• October 19, 2017 at 8:23 pm

I have a custom WP Query that shows a single post based on an ACF True / False field, like so:

The query works just fine.

I now want to exclude this post from my main WordPress loop. I’m thinking pre_get_posts is the way to do this, and have this:

function exclude_featured_post( $query ) {
    if ( $query->is_home() && $query->is_main_query() ) {

      $custom_meta = array(
        'key' => 'featured_post',
        'value' => '1',
        'compare' => '!='
      );
    }
}
add_action( 'pre_get_posts', 'exclude_featured_post' );

However, this does not exclude post from the main query.

• gummi

• October 28, 2017 at 2:40 pm

you’d need to call on the $query object to modify it, it should look something like this:

function exclude_featured_post( $query ) {
    if ( $query->is_home() && $query->is_main_query()) {
        // in case for some reason there's already a meta query set from other plugin
        $meta_query = $query->get('meta_query')? : [];

        // append yours
        $meta_query[] = [
            'key' => 'featured_post',
            'value' => '1',
            'compare' => '!='
        ];

        $query->set('meta_query', $meta_query);
    }
}
add_action( 'pre_get_posts', 'exclude_featured_post' );

Cheers

• juxprose

• October 30, 2017 at 7:21 am

Thanks @gummiforweb

I can’t get the query to return any posts.

This will get the posts with the ACF True/False set to 1:

        $meta_query[] = [
            'key' => 'featured_post',
            'value' => '1',
            'compare' => '='
        ];

However this will not do the opposite, and exclude the posts, it shows nothing:

        $meta_query[] = [
            'key' => 'featured_post',
            'value' => '1',
            'compare' => '!='
        ]; 

Trying things like 'value' => '' with 'compare' => '=' also returns nothing.

• juxprose

• October 30, 2017 at 7:32 pm

Using 'compare' => 'NOT EXISTS' instead of 'compare' => '!=' seems to return all posts and exclude the meta_query.

function exclude_featured_post( $query ) {
    if ( $query->is_home() && $query->is_main_query()) {
        // in case for some reason there's already a meta query set from other plugin
        $meta_query = $query->get('meta_query')? : [];

        // append yours
        $meta_query[] = [
            'key' => 'featured_post',
            'value' => '1',
            'compare' => 'NOT EXISTS'
        ];

        $query->set('meta_query', $meta_query);

      	//echo '<pre>'; print_r( $query ); echo '</pre>';

    }
}
add_action( 'pre_get_posts', 'exclude_featured_post' );

From here: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/18158

• gummi

• October 31, 2017 at 4:18 am

In that case, you might wanna have an either/or meta query. Because if you just use NOT EXISTS, it’s going to include those that you checked and uncheck (which the featured_post is 0, but still consider “exists”)

$meta_query[] = [
    'relation' => 'OR',
    [
        'key' => 'featured_post',
        'compare' => 'NOT EXISTS'
    ],
    [
        'key' => 'featured_post',
        'value' => '1',
        'compare' => '!='
    ],
];

Cheers

• juxprose

• November 8, 2017 at 9:13 pm

Thanks @gummiforweb

You’re correct, when a post has been checked and un-checked as a “featured post” it is excluded from the loop, never to be seen again.

Your code solves this problem – thanks.

Thank you

• panayotoff

• May 21, 2019 at 9:37 pm

I have the same problem:

The meta query is:

'meta_query' => [
                    'relation' => 'OR',
                    [
                        'key'     => 'font_hide_page',
                        'value'   => [1],
                        'compare' => 'NOT IN',
                    ],
                    [
                        'key'     => 'font_hide_page',
                        'compare' => 'NOT EXISTS',
                    ]
                ],

The problem is that the query is very slow ( takes ~7s per query ). If I remove the meta query, the same query executes around than 0.6ms. Can anybody help with optimised way of doing such queries?