Multiple Options Pages w/ Multiple Instances of Dynamic Choices

• joannawhatever

• March 10, 2018 at 9:46 am

I have two options pages (page A and page B), and I’ve set up a dynamically populated dropdown on Page B that pulls information from Page A. I’d like to set up a dynamically populated dropdown on Page A that pulls information from Page B, but the two dropdowns don’t seem to play well with each other. I can get each to work if they’re isolated, but I can’t run both functions at the same time.

I thought maybe it was a restated variable issue, but even making the variables unique didn’t get them to work concurrently. Please help!

Here is my code (with specifics changed)

// Runs on page B, gets select choices from Page A
function acf_load_uno_field_choices( $field1 ) {
    
    // reset choices
    $field1['choices'] = array();

    // if has rows
    if( have_rows('repeater1', 'option') ) {
        
        // while has rows
        while( have_rows('repeater1', 'option') ) {
            
            // instantiate row
            the_row();
            
            // vars
            $label1 = get_sub_field('textfield1');
            $value1 = strtolower($label1);
            
            // append to choices
            $field1['choices'][ $value1 ] = $label1;
            
        }
        
    }

    // return the field
    return $field1;
    
}
add_filter('acf/load_field/name=dropdown1', 'acf_load_uno_field_choices');

// Runs on page A, gets select choices from Page B
    
    // reset choices
    $field2['choices'] = array();

    // if has rows
    if( have_rows('repeater2', 'option') ) {
        
        // while has rows
        while( have_rows('repeater2', 'option') ) {
            
            // instantiate row
            the_row();
            
            // vars
            $label2 = get_sub_field('textfield2');
            $value2 = strtolower($label2);
            
            // append to choices
            $field2['choices'][ $value2 ] = $label2;
            
        }
        
    }

    // return the field
    return $field2;
    
}
add_filter('acf/load_field/name=dropdown2', 'acf_load_dos_field_choices');

• John Huebner

• March 12, 2018 at 1:18 am

It is very likely that you’re creating an infinite loop.

1) When ACF loads repeater 1 the filter to get the values from field 2 is called
2) This causes ACF to load repeater 2
3) When ACF loads repeater 2 the filter to get the values from field 1 is called
4) This causes ACF to load repeater 1 — loop back to #1

This can be solved in a couple of ways.

1) If you are familiar with how ACF stores the values of a repeater you can use the WP function get_option(), this avoids calling ACF functions and eliminates the infinite loop.

// example of getting repeater values without ACF functions
$repeater = 'repeater1'; // name of repeater
$count = intval(get_option('options_'.$repeater)); // gets # rows
for ($i=0; $i<$count; $i++) {
  $value = get_options('options_'.$repeater.'_'.$i.'_sub_field_name';
}

2) In each filter, remove the hook for that filter and then replace it so that each filter can only be called oned.

// example of removing/replacing filter
function acf_load_uno_field_choices($field1) {
  
  // remove this filter
  remove_filter('acf/load_field/name=dropdown1', 'acf_load_uno_field_choices');
  
  // your code to get values here
  
  // re-add this filter
  add_filter('acf/load_field/name=dropdown1', 'acf_load_uno_field_choices');
  
  // return field
  return $field1;
    
}
add_filter('acf/load_field/name=dropdown1', 'acf_load_uno_field_choices');