Issue with query between 2 dates

• sstudebaker

• April 21, 2016 at 3:59 am

Having an issue with query between start and end dates. Query works fine until I add in the meta-query. I have tried all solutions I can think of. Any ideas? Here is my code
[code]
$today = date(‘Ymd’);
$args = array(
‘post_type’ => ‘ads’,
‘categories’ => $category,
‘post_status’ => ‘publish’,
‘orderby’ => ‘rand’,
‘numberposts’ => ‘1’,
‘meta_query’ => array(
‘relation’ => ‘AND’,
array(
‘key’ => ‘start_date’,
‘compare’ => ‘>=’,
‘value’ => $today,
),
array(
‘key’ => ‘end_date’,
‘compare’ => ‘<=’,
‘value’ => $today,
)
)
);
$custom_query = new WP_Query( $args );
if ( $custom_query->have_posts() ) :
// do some stuff
endif;
[/code]

• John Huebner

• April 29, 2016 at 5:37 pm

This looks correct, the only thing I can see is that you have

'meta_query' => array(
  'relation' => 'AND',
  array(
    'key' => 'start_date',
    'compare' => '>=',
    'value' => $today,
  ),
  array(
    'key' => 'end_date',
    'compare' => '<=',
    'value' => $today,
  )
)

so only posts with today’s date in both the start and end date will appear. Maybe you’re not comparing it right. What do you want it to return?

• joackomans

• February 5, 2021 at 2:55 am

Hi, same problem here. In my case what I want to achieve is, having events with start_date and end_date, check if any of them are active in a given date.
In other words, if that given date is between start_date and end_date of any of the events.
I tried something similar to your code @hube2 , but I get no results. I also tried with ‘OR’ relationship, but in that case is like showing all events, as start_date or end_date will match the rule.

• John Huebner

• February 5, 2021 at 6:21 am

This depends on what you’re looking for exactly.
Do you have a range of dates that the start and end date of the event needs to be between? Do you have a date and anything after that date is shown? These would be completely different queries.
For example, if I wanted all of the events with start or end dates after today, then I wouldn’t check the start date at all because if the end date is after today then the start date does not matter

'meta_query' => array(
  array(
    'key' => 'end_date',
    'compare' => '>=',
    'value' => $today,
  )
)

But if I want events that are happening between two dates

'meta_query' => array(
  'relation' => 'OR',
  array(
    array(
      'relation' => 'AND',
      array(
        'key' => 'start_date',
        'compare' => '>=',
        'value' => $start_range
      ),
      array(
        'key' => 'start_date',
        'compare' => '<=',
        'value' => $end_range
      )
    )
  ),
  array(
    array(
      'relation' => 'AND',
      array(
        'key' => 'end_date',
        'compare' => '>=',
        'value' => $start_range
      ),
      array(
        'key' => 'end_date',
        'compare' => '<=',
        'value' => $end_range
      )
    )
  )
)