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[CustomPress] Sort posts by custom field

I have a custom post-type “person” that will have a custom field “city”. I am able to sort posts by title, but would also like to sort by “city”, so that for each “city” I could echo the custom field value as a sub-headline ( <h2> ) and then list all post with same “city” – then the next “city” as a sub-headline and the persons with same “city”. Also “city” should be alphabetized as well as the listing of “person”. So the output should be something like this:

<h2>City 1</h2>

- person1_1 (with city1)

- person1_2 (with city1)

<h2>City 2</h2>

- person 2_1 (with city2)

- person 2_2 (with city 2)

Could you provide me with an example of code I can use for this?

Thu, 17 Jan 2019 17:31:56
  • Dimitris Kalliris
    • Support Team Lead

    Hello there Georg,

    hope you’re doing well! :slight_smile:

    You should be able to do so using query arguments like this:

    $query = query_posts( array(
    
'post_type' => 'person',
    
'order'     => 'DESC',
    
'meta_key'  => '_ct_text_5c40dd53ea847',
    
'orderby'   => 'meta_value'
    
) );

    Reference: https://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_Query#Order_.26_Orderby_Parameters

    The meta_key above is from a testing site of mine, you should replace with your own as it can be found in CustomPress here:

    [attachments are only viewable by logged-in members]

    Above snippet can be combined with the actual WP loop in a similar way like this:

    <?php
    
$query = query_posts( array(
    
'post_type' => 'person',
    
'order'     => 'DESC',
    
'meta_key'  => '_ct_text_5c40dd53ea847',
    
'orderby'   => 'meta_value'
    
) );
    

    
if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
    

    
<div <?php post_class(); ?> id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
    
<h1><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h1>
    
<?php the_content(); ?>
    
</div>
    

    
<?php endwhile; ?>
    

    
<div class="navigation">
    
<div class="next-posts"><?php next_posts_link(); ?></div>
    
<div class="prev-posts"><?php previous_posts_link(); ?></div>
    
</div>
    

    
<?php else : ?>
    

    
<div <?php post_class(); ?> id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
    
<h1>Not Found</h1>
    
</div>
    

    
<?php endif; ?>
    

    
<?php wp_reset_query(); ?>

    Let me know if further assistance is required on this!

    Thank you,

    Dimitris

  • Georg
    • Design Lord, Child of Thor

    Hi Dimitris,

    I’ve updated the key input to the one for my site and your code works fine. However, I wanted to take it one step further. In a situation like this:

    person city

    Al Oslo

    Barny Bergen

    Charlie Oslo

    I was looking for the code for a display like this:

    Bergen

    – Barny

    Oslo

    – Al

    – Charlie

    Is this possible?

    Bets Regards

    Georg Inderdal

  • Dimitris Kalliris
    • Support Team Lead

    Hello Georg

    This would require to have separate loops per city, for example:

    $oslo_query = query_posts( array(
    
'post_type'  => 'person',
    
'meta_key'   => '_ct_text_5c40dd53ea847',
    
'orderby'    => 'meta_value',
    
'order'      => 'ASC',
    
'meta_query' => array(
    
array(
    
'key'     => '_ct_text_5c40dd53ea847',
    
'value'   => 'Oslo'
    
)
    
)
    
) );

    Warm regards,

    Dimitris