WP_Query Distinct results

• v0rt3x

• December 18, 2013 at 8:21 pm

Hello there,

I have a little issue and need your help.
I’m trying to create a dropdown menu from all the values of a custom field. For example I have a custom post type ‘locations’ with custom field ‘country’. I want to take all the countries and put them into a <select>.
I succeeded to get all countries but if I have one country used in more that one location it shows twice or more. How can I distinct the results? I managed to do it with jQuery but I don’t think it’s the right way.
Here is the code that I use to get the fields:

$args = array(
	'post_type' => 'locations',
	'posts_per_page' => -1,
	'meta_query' => array(
	         array(
			'key' => 'country',
		)
	),
);
$query = new WP_Query( $args );
					
if($query->have_posts()) : 
  echo "<select name='country' class='form-control' id='countryselect'>";
  while($query->have_posts()) : 
	$query->the_post();
	echo "<option>" . get_field('country') . "</option>";
  endwhile;
  echo "</select>";
endif;

Thanks in advance!

• Elliot

• December 19, 2013 at 9:48 am

Hi @v0rt3x

You can add some simple logic to test if the option has already been added like so:

<?php 

$added = array();
$args = array(
	'post_type' => 'locations',
	'posts_per_page' => -1,
	'meta_query' => array(
	         array(
			'key' => 'country',
		)
	),
);
$query = new WP_Query( $args );
					
if($query->have_posts()) : 
  echo "<select name='country' class='form-control' id='countryselect'>";
  while($query->have_posts()) : 
	$query->the_post();
	
	// get country
	$country = get_field('country');
	
	
	// bail early if this country has already been added
	if( in_array($country, $added) )
	{
		continue;
	}
	
	
	// add country
	$added[] = $country
	
	echo "<option>" . $country . "</option>";
  endwhile;
  echo "</select>";
endif;

 ?>

Hope that helps.

Thanks
E

• v0rt3x

• December 19, 2013 at 7:44 pm

Thank you @elliot for the help, it worked perfectly 🙂