Weird meta_key's stringing field names together…

• andycheeseman

• September 16, 2015 at 1:46 am

When my custom fields are saved to the database, their meta key seems to be strung together in one DB field. The image below consists of various ACF fields (custom_layout, custom_columns, column_1, column_2). But taking the second line for example, where does that 1 come from?

custom_layout_custom_columns_1_column_2

I’m trying to nest some PHP as shown below, in order to get to the column_2, but I can’t seem to get there.

if( have_rows('custom_layout') ):
  while ( have_rows('custom_layout') ) : the_row();
    if( have_rows('custom_columns') ):
      while ( have_rows('custom_columns') ) : the_row();
        if( have_rows('column_2') ):
          while ( have_rows('column_2') ) : the_row();

• John Huebner

• September 16, 2015 at 5:02 am

I can’t be sure, but, knowing something about the way ACF saves fields I would say

you have a flexible content field named custom_layout_custom_columns
this has a sub field named column_2

so you should only have two while statements using those column names. If custom_columns was a sub field of custom_layout what you would see in the db would look something like

custom_layout_1_custom_columns_2_column_2_custom_con....

if( have_rows('custom_layout_custom_columns') ):
  while ( have_rows('custom_layout_custom_columns') ) : the_row();
        if( have_rows('column_2') ):
          while ( have_rows('column_2') ) : the_row();