Sorting posts by Date Picker field not working as expected

• MDesigns

• November 27, 2019 at 8:41 am

I have created a custom Date Picker field for my posts and I am trying to generate a WP_Query to display the posts in ascending order by date(both month and year). However, I am not getting the expected result. Currently I have one post assigned with a November 2019 date, two with December 2019 and one with January 2020. Here is my loop:

<?php

$today = date('Ymd');

$the_query = new WP_Query( array(
  'post_type'   => 'post',
  'post_status' => 'publish',
  'meta_query' => array(
    array(
      'key' => 'event_date',
      'value' => $today,
      'type' => 'DATE',
      'compare' => '>='
    )
  ),
  'meta_key' => 'event_date',
  'order_by' => 'meta_value_num',
  'order' => 'ASC',
  'posts_per_page' => -1
));

# This will hold what group we're in
$current_header = '';

# The Loop
while ( $the_query->have_posts() ) :
    $the_query->the_post();

    # get the datum for this post
    $date = strtotime(get_field('event_date'));
    $month = date('M', $date);
    $year = date('Y', $date);

    echo $month . ' ' . $year . '<h2>' . get_the_title() . '</h2>';

endwhile;

?>

However, the posts are being returned in this order:
1. Nov 2019
2. Jan 2020
3. Dec 2019
4. Dec 2019

Any ideas as to why the January 2020 post is in the 2nd position instead of last?

• MDesigns

• December 3, 2019 at 3:14 am

Well, I realized the issue, supposed to be orderby instead of order_by. /facepalm