If statement not working when field is empty

• Squideyes

• January 19, 2020 at 4:39 am

I have an ACF field for hero images called hero_image. This field sits at the top of my single.php page like so:

<?php
/**
 * The template for displaying all single posts
 *
 * @link https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/basics/template-hierarchy/#single-post
 *
 * @package sitename
 */

get_header();
?>

<?php 
    $post_id = get_the_ID(); // Required as outside the loop
    $image = get_field('hero_image', $post_id);
    if ($image) {
        echo '<div class="hero">'.wp_get_attachment_image( $image, 'hero').'</div>';
    }
?>

<div class="has-sidebar">

    <div id="primary" class="content-area">

        <main id="main" class="site-main">

        <?php
        while ( have_posts() ) :
            the_post();

            get_template_part( 'template-parts/content', get_post_type() );

            the_post_navigation();

        endwhile; // End of the loop.
        ?>

        </main><!-- #main -->

    </div><!-- #primary -->

    <?php
        get_sidebar();
        get_footer();
    ?>

</div><!-- .has-sidebar -->

I’m using the $post_id variable to fetch the field from outside the loop. The image loads as expected.

If an image hasn’t been uploaded for a post using the field, I’m expecting there to be no markup on the front-end. However, I still see the following:

<div class="hero"></div>

Why isn’t my if statement working when the field isn’t in use?

• John Huebner

• January 19, 2020 at 5:08 am

That seems odd, what is it returning?

$image = get_field('hero_image', $post_id);
var_dump($image);

• Squideyes

• January 19, 2020 at 5:18 am

Yes, it’s very weird. var_dump($image); returns int(791).

• John Huebner

• January 19, 2020 at 5:41 am

So, you are getting a value.

Likely causes

1) There is another field attached to the post with the same name

2) you are using conditional logic to hide the image field, the image field will still have a value even if it’s hidden. If you are using conditional logic then you need to do the if on that conditional field and not the image field.

3) get_the_ID() is returning the wrong post ID

• Squideyes

• January 19, 2020 at 6:08 am

Ah… I think you may have solved it.

I only have two fields (hero_image and thumbnail_image). These are set to appear on all pages and posts including custom post types.

I’ve just looked in my header.php file and look at what I found:

<?php
	// Get post ID
	$post_id = get_queried_object_id();
	// Hero image
	$hero = get_field('hero_image', $post_id);
	$hero_url = wp_get_attachment_url( get_field('hero_image', $post_id), 'hero');
?>

<?php if ( is_single() || is_archive() ): ?>
	<header id="masthead" class="site-header">
<?php else: ?>
	<header id="masthead" <?php if ($hero) { echo 'class="site-header has-background" style="background:url('.$hero_url.')"'; } else { echo 'class="site-header"'; } ?>>
<?php endif; ?>

I’ve renamed $post_id in header.php to $post_id_outside_loop. I’ve then used this variable via single.php as it’s also outside the loop. This has solved the issue.

For anyone that stumbles across this, see this post for more info.