meta query with two custom types

• edwin

• February 5, 2014 at 9:09 pm

I’ve created two custom types:
– art
– media
For the art type I’ve created a custom field ‘post object’ which is linked to the media post type media. Multiple selections are allowed.

So for instance an artwork is linked to the following media items:
– mixed media
– painting.

One the front of the website people can filter art by selecting one or more media-types. So when mixed media is selected, all mixed-media art is shown. When mxed media and painting is selected all art with these two media-types are shown.

But how do I do this on the front side? So far I have
($aCheckedMedia is an array with ID’s of the selected media-types)

$arrays = array('relation' => 'AND');
for ($i = 0; $i < count($aCheckedMedia); $i++) {
	$count = count($arrays);
	$arrays[$i] = array(
		'key' => 'categorie',
		'value' => $aCheckedMedia[$i],
		'compare' => 'LIKE'
	);
}
$paged = ( get_query_var('paged') ) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1;
$kunst = new WP_Query( array(
	'post_type' => 'kunst', 
	'orderby' => 'title', 
	'order' => 'asc',
	'posts_per_page' => 4,
	'meta_key' => 'status',
	'meta_value' => 'te koop',
	'meta_query' => $arrays
));

But than only art is shown where both media-types are selected and art with only one of the media-types area not shown. If I use
$arrays = array('relation' => 'OR');
all art shows up.

• Elliot

• February 6, 2014 at 11:41 am

Hi @advancedcustomfields@swell.nl

The relation should be OR to allow for any of the meta_query’s to match. I can’t explain why ALL the art appears.

Firstly, can you change:
$arrays[$i] = array(

to:
$arrays[] = array(

I’m not sure if that is an important change, but I don’t think specific indexes are needed here.

The main issue I can see is that your WP_Query has:

'meta_key' => 'status',
	'meta_value' => 'te koop',

This will override the 'meta_query' => $arrays

Please only use the 'meta_query' => $arrays

Thanks
E

• edwin

• February 6, 2014 at 8:54 pm

Hi Elliot,

Thank you for your reply. Your solution worked, thanks!

But I really need the extra ‘status’ parameter. It’s an another custom field where I can mark the item as sold/reserved/for sale.
How can I combine this with the meta_query?

Thanks,
Edwin

• Elliot

• February 7, 2014 at 1:05 pm

Hi @advancedcustomfields@swell.nl

This is a limitation of the WP_Query args.
If you were to add the status to the meta_query array, then it too would be treated as an ‘OR’.

It seems that you can’t mix ‘AND’ with ‘OR’ in a meta_query.

You may need to first find all the posts using the meta_query you have, then loop over the results and remove (unset) the ones which don’t have the correct ‘status’ meta_value.

Thanks
E

• edwin

• February 7, 2014 at 8:30 pm

Hi ELliot,

Thank you again for your reply.
Unfortunataly I have a paginate_links() on the bottom of the page. I think filtering will break it (count wrong)…

Do you know a solution for that?

Thanks
Edwin

• Elliot

• February 9, 2014 at 12:58 pm

Hi @edwin

I think you can edit the global $wp_query object to modify the number of results and the actual results found.

But perhaps the easiest solution of all is to use a taxonomy for the ‘status’ this way you can separate it form the meta_query.

Thanks
E