Search Custom Fields by Wildcard

• thepaperplant

• April 18, 2019 at 7:12 am

I am trying to query posts by a custom field (not a subfield) using a wildcard. What I am trying to do is get all posts where the last name starts with the letter “A%” or “B%” etc etc. Cannot find any documentation on this, but surely it must be possible? MY WP Query code is below (but brings back 0 results).

$group1 = new WP_Query(array(
'post_type' => 'oral_histories',
'posts_per_page' => -1,
'meta_key'	=> 'last-name',
'orderby'	=> 'meta_value',
'order'		=> 'ASC',
'meta_query'	=> array(
 'relation'		=> 'OR',
 array(
'key'		=> 'last-name',
 'value'		=> 'A%',
'compare'	=> 'LIKE'
),
 array(
'key'		=> 'last-name',
'value'		=> 'B%',
'compare'	=> 'LIKE'
)
)
));

• John Huebner

• April 20, 2019 at 12:52 am

$group1 = new WP_Query(array(
'post_type' => 'oral_histories',
'posts_per_page' => -1,
'meta_key'	=> 'last-name',
'orderby'	=> 'meta_value',
'order'		=> 'ASC',
'meta_query'	=> array(
 'relation'		=> 'OR',
 array(
'key'		=> 'last-name',
 'value'		=> '^A',
'compare'	=> 'REGEXP'
),
 array(
'key'		=> 'last-name',
'value'		=> '^B',
'compare'	=> 'REGEXP'
)
)
));

• HvN

• November 11, 2022 at 4:13 pm

Question:

can the ‘^’ wildcard also be used in the keys instead of the values? Like:

array(
  'key'	     => 'name_^',
  'compare'  => 'REGEXP'
)

…to retrieve valueas of all fields that start with ‘name_’ and then something.
Like: ‘name_123’, ‘name_abc’, ‘name_strawberries’ etc.

Or can/should I do that in the ‘meta_key’ value, like:
'meta_key' => 'name_^',

Thanks in advance for your reply!

• John Huebner

• November 11, 2022 at 9:31 pm

^ represents the start of the string, see this reference https://www.mysqltutorial.org/mysql-regular-expression-regexp.aspx

To find values that start with a sting you would use “LIKE” “name_%”
LIKE and REGEXP are completely different.

WP_Query does not allow “LIKE” or “REGXP” on meta keys

• HvN

• November 12, 2022 at 3:55 am

Thank you!