WP_User_Query by Select Field Values

• sylargaf

• May 9, 2021 at 3:47 am

Hey everyone. I am trying to query WP_USERS by a custom field that is a select field. I’ve mostly got it working, but i’m still having a weird issue, where results will return multiple results of the same name. Normally I would just do a “DISTINCT” addition but i’m not sure the way to do that in WordPress / ACF. Anyways here’s what I want to accomplish:

3 Search Fields
1 – A Dropdown of all User’s First Name & Last Name
2. A group of checkboxes of all the users types of artwork. There’s about 80 types in here.
3. A group of checkboxes of all the users locations (So for example the select box has the following values;
1. North London / North Portsmouth / North Chester
2. South Liverpool / East Liverpool
3. Newcastle / Sunderland)

So, let’s say someone picks the following:
1. Sylar Gaf
2. Painting, Airbrush
3. North London / North Portsmouth / North Chester

Then the database would check to see if there’s a Sylar Gaf who does Painting and Airbrush in a preassigned region of North London / North Portsmouth / North Chester. Pretty straight forward.

I have 1 & 2 sort of working. When I try to do the above search like this:

1. Sylar Gaf
2. Airbrush

I get 1 result back; Sylar Gaf. This works.

However if I do the following search:

1.Sylar Gaf
2.Painting

I get 2 results back: Sylar Gaf, Sylar Gaf. So it’s working, but repeating. And it’s the same result if I combine number 2 (2. Airbrush, Painting). A sample request looks like this:

{
	"artistFilter": "Sylar Gaf",
	"mediumType": [
		"Airbrush",
		"Paintings"
	],
	"action": "myfilter"
}

I have the logic programmed for search 3, but it doesn’t return anything back, but I think that may be because of the info it’s retrieving from ACF?

Anyways, hoping you folks could help out. Below is my code.

Thanks!

Code:

function misha_filter_function(){

    $args = array(
        'role' => 'artist',
        'order' => 'ASC',
        'orderby' => 'display_name',
        'meta_query' => array(
            'relation'=>'AND',
        )
    );

    if (isset($_POST['artistFilter'])){
        $name = explode(" ",$_POST['artistFilter']);

        $args['meta_query'][] = array(
            'key' => 'first_name',
            'value' => $name[0],
            'compare' => 'LIKE'
        );
        $args['meta_query'][] = array(
            'key' => 'last_name',
            'value' => $name[1],
            'compare' => 'LIKE'
        );
    };

    if (isset($_POST['mediumType'])){
        // WP_User_Query arguments
        $args['meta_query'][] = array(
            'meta_key' => 'artist_medium',
           'value'=> $_POST['mediumType'],
           'compare' => 'LIKE'
        );
    };

    if (isset($_POST['locationType'])){
        $args['meta_query'][] = array(
            'meta_key'=>'studio_region_location',
            'value' =>$_POST['locationType'],
            'compare' => 'LIKE'
        );
    };

    $user_query = new WP_USER_QUERY ($args);

    if (! empty($user_query->get_results())){
        foreach ($user_query->get_results() as $user){
            echo '<a href="/staging/author/' . esc_html($user->user_login) . '">' . esc_attr($user->first_name) . ' ' . esc_attr($user->last_name) . '</a>';
        }
        wp_reset_postdata();
    } else {
        echo '<h1>No Users Found.</h1>';
    }
}

My search form:

   <form action="<?php site_url()?>/staging/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php" method="POST" id="filter">
<?php
    if ($artists){
        echo '<div class="artistDiv">';
        echo '<select name="artistFilter"><option value="">Select Artist...</option>';
        foreach ($artists as $artist){
            echo '<option value="' . $artist->first_name . ' ' . $artist->last_name . '">' . $artist->first_name . ' ' . $artist->last_name . '</option>';
        }
        echo '</select>';
        echo '</div>';
    }

    if ($field){
        echo '<div class="mediumDiv">';
        foreach ($field['choices'] as $choice){
            echo '<input type="checkbox" name="mediumType" value="' . $choice .'" id="'.$choice.'">';
            echo '<label for="'.$choice.'">'.$choice.'</label><br>';
        }
        echo '</div>';
    }

    if ($locations):
        echo '<div class="locationDiv">';
        foreach ($locations['choices'] as $location){
            echo '<input type="checkbox" name="locationType" value="' . $location .'" id="'.$location.'">';
            echo '<label for="'.$location.'">'.$location.'</label><br>';
        }
        echo '</div>';
    endif;
	?>
<button>Apply Filters</button> 
<input type="hidden" name="action" value="myfilter">

• John Huebner

• May 15, 2021 at 1:52 am

I did some looking into this and it seems that WP has a history of returning duplicate users when doing a user query.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=wp+user+query+returns+multiples+of+same+user

Sorry, I don’t have a fix for you. Most of what I’ve found says it was fixed but you’ve obviously found a case that it is not. After following some of the stuff the search turned up what I would probably to is build a list in an array of users that have already been shown and then skip the duplicates and work around the problem.

• sylargaf

• May 15, 2021 at 3:10 am

Hey no worries and thanks for your time. I ended up having to do a weird function that sets “DISTINCT” somehow, but it seems to work. Thanks for your time!