Best Practice? Looper with custom meta date

[foureyes]

Hi! I am building a grid based on a custom post type and sorting by a custom field… business as ususal. and is works great:

post_type=mec-events&orderby=meta_value&meta_key=mec_start_date&order=ASC&posts_per_page=4&date_query=mec_start_date

However, I need to only show events where the start date is greater than equal today and I do not think the query string can do that and the query builder only has options for using published date. I am assuming I need to do a meta query or the like, but before I dive in I was hoping for some guidance and best approach and practice?

Thank you!

[ruenel]

Hello Michael,

Thanks for reaching out.

Your query is like this:

$meta_query[] = array(
    'key'     => 'mec_start_date',
    'value'   => date('Ymd'),
    'compare' => '>=',
);

$query = array(
    'post_type'  => 'mec-events',
    'meta_key'   => 'mec_start_date',
    'orderby'    => 'meta_value',
    'order'      => 'ASC',
    'meta_query' => $meta_query
);

Using the @Kory’s solution from this article (Looper Query String: Featured Products), you should be getting this query string:

post_type=mec-events&meta_key=mec_start_date&orderby=meta_value&order=ASC&meta_query%5B0%5D%5Bkey%5D=mec_start_date&meta_query%5B0%5D%5Bvalue%5D=20210805&meta_query%5B0%5D%5Bcompare%5D=%3E%3D

where the “20210805” is the date of today. And to get the current, you will have to use the dynamic content date “{{dc:global:date format="Ymd"}}”

Therefore the final query string would be like this:

post_type=mec-events&meta_key=mec_start_date&orderby=meta_value&order=ASC&meta_query%5B0%5D%5Bkey%5D=mec_start_date&meta_query%5B0%5D%5Bvalue%5D={{dc:global:date format="Ymd"}}&meta_query%5B0%5D%5Bcompare%5D=%3E%3D

Hope this explains your issue briefly.

[foureyes]

This is a treasure trove. I was 60% there and no doubt that last 40% would hav totally eluded me.

Well I spun up a test page because this will come in useful in the future. My result being:

post_type=mec-events&meta_key=mec_start_date&orderby=meta_value&order=ASC&meta_query%5B0%5D%5Bkey%5D=mec_start_date&meta_query%5B0%5D%5Bvalue%5D={{dc:global:date format="Ymd"}}&meta_query%5B0%5D%5Bcompare%5D=%3E%3D

The above did not work. I went through the query string and it appears that it falls apart at the meta query.
So in case anyone is interested just specify the TYPE as DATE

$meta_query[] = array( 'key' => 'mec_start_date', 'value' => date('Ymd'), 'compare' => '>=', 'type' => 'DATE', );

Also, you can add poster per page (&posts_per_page=4) as well.

Ruenel… THANK YOU!!!

[tristup]

Hi Michael,

Glad that you are able to find that and share it for others.

Thanks