Sorting posts by two custom fields

• artur4ek94

• March 11, 2021 at 6:56 pm

Each post has custom fields “order_status” and “order_date_end”.
I have sorted posts by “order_status” in lowest order(ASC).
And among these sorted (go in groups), sorting by the “order_date_end” field from the largest is impossible(DESC).

$posts = get_posts( array(
          'numberposts' => -1,
          'orderby'   	=> array(
                  'order_status' => 'ASC',
                  'order_date_end' => 'DESC',
                    ),
          'meta_key' 	=> 'order_status',
          'post_type'  	=> 'order-item',
        ) );

Maybe someone came across?

• John Huebner

• March 12, 2021 at 5:47 am

You cannot sort by multiple fields the way you are attempting to do it. Since order_date_end in not references in the query anywhere WP can’t use it.

Take a look at WP_Query Custom Fields section, particularly the part about “meta_query” which you need to use to filter or order by multiple fields.

Then look at the orderby section and the code example titled ‘orderby’ with multiple ‘meta_key’s

Let me know if you can’t figure it out from there?

• artur4ek94

• March 12, 2021 at 6:12 am

I changed it like this. It seems to work. If I changed correctly.

$posts = get_posts( array(
					'numberposts' 	=> -1,
					'post_type'  	=> 'order-item',
                    'meta_query'    =>  array(
                        'relation'  =>  'AND',
                        'order_status'  =>  array(
                            'key'       => 'order_status',
                            'value'     =>  array(1,2,3,4,5),
                        ),
                        'order_date_end'    => array(
                            'key'       => 'order_date_end',
                            'compare'   =>  'EXISTS',
                        )
                    ),
                    'orderby'   =>  array(
                        'order_status' =>   "ASC",
                        'order_date_end' =>   "DESC",
                    ),
				) );

• John Huebner

• March 12, 2021 at 6:18 am

Not sure about the order status value, but that looks good to me

• jhamaker

• June 2, 2023 at 5:39 pm

My question is where does this go, and how would I get the sort to carry over to an Elementor archive?

I have a staff directory page which I would like to sort by department and position (manager, supervisor, staff). So My array would look like below, but I don’t know where to save it or implement it.

Also, I’m not sure if it would be better to set up my department and position fields as text or use a numeric id. If I was doing this in a database I would select the ID and output the label.

$posts = get_posts( array(
		'numberposts' 	=> -1,
		'post_type'  	=> 'Staff-Member',
                    'meta_query'    =>  array(
                        'relation'  =>  'AND',
                        'department'  =>  array(
                            'key'       => 'department',
                            'value'     =>  array(1,2,3),
                            // 1='Admin', 2='Fiscal', 3='Maintenance'
                        ),
                        'position'    => array(
                            'key'       => 'position',
                            'value'   =>  array(1,2,3)
                            // 1='Manager', 2='Supervisor', 3='Staff'
                        )
                    ),
                    'orderby'   =>  array(
                        'department' =>   "ASC",
                        'position' =>   "ASC",
                    ),
				) );