can I orderby one custom field and meta_query another in the same query

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I have a custom query and I am filtering out events by custom field: event-month. I simple filter our the events that dont have a month_number = to date(“n”);

Its a pretty great little query, but I need to orderby another custom field, event_date.

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Do I need a custom function or something to get this done. I simply want to orderby => event_date

but I am currently using event-month for my query. 

<?php 
        $event_query = new WP_Query(
        array( 
          'post_type'   => 'event',        // only query events
          'meta_key'    => 'event-month',  // load up the event_date meta
          'order_by'    => '',
          'order'       => 'asc',         // ascending, so earlier events first
          'meta_query'  => array(
             array(         // restrict posts based on meta values
              'key'     => 'event-month',  // which meta to query
              'value'   => date("n"),  // value for comparison
              'compare' => '=',          // method of comparison
              'type'    => 'NUMERIC'         // datatype, we don't want to compare the string values
            ) // meta_query is an array of query ites
           ) // end meta_query array
          ) // end array
        ); // close WP_Query constructor call

?>

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3 comments

  1. Despite meta_key being deprecated, it is still required to get the orderby to work correctly.

    First and foremost though, there’s an error with your code, and that’s in using order_by and not orderby (there’s no underscore in the orderby arg).

    Give this a shot and see how it works out for you.

    $event_query = new WP_Query( array( 
    'post_type'   => 'event',
    'meta_key'    => 'event-month',
    'meta_query'  => array(
        array( 
            'key'     => 'event-month',
            'value'   => date("n"),
            'compare' => '=',
            'type'    => 'NUMERIC'
        )
    ),
    'orderby'    => 'meta_value',
    'order'       => 'asc', 
) );

    If you want to add a second meta key, and sort by that key, just ensure that key is inside the meta_key arg, eg.

    $event_query = new WP_Query( array( 
    'post_type'   => 'event',
    'meta_key'    => 'some-key',
    'meta_query'  => array(
        array( 
            'key'     => 'some-key',
            'value'   => 'whatever',
            'compare' => '=',
            'type'    => 'NUMERIC'
        ),
        array( 
            'key'     => 'event-month',
            'value'   => date("n"),
            'compare' => '=',
            'type'    => 'NUMERIC'
        )
    ),
    'orderby'    => 'meta_value',
    'order'       => 'asc', 
) );

    Odd that you should need meta_key for the sort, but i don’t see the orderby being respected without it, i can see how the query appears inside debug bar‘s queries tab and as far as i can tell meta_key is currently required to get a proper sort on meta_value.

  2. I found that t31os’s answer works, but only if included with:

     'posts_per_page'   => -1,

    in the $args …

    Not including it did weird things like removing records that were meant to be in result set.