querying with custom meta field with meta_query

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How do we get posts where the meta key does not exist in a post.
I have created a meta_key video. and i want to be able to get some posts with WP_Query where custom field video does not exist or is blank. 

$fsquery = new WP_Query( 
                        array ( 
                        'posts_per_page' => 1,
                        'featured' => 'yes',
                        'meta_key'=>'video',
                        'meta_value'=>''
                        )
                    );

this is not working.

Post Views: 1

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3 comments

  1. There’s actually a better solution that will (hopefully) be rolling out in WordPress 3.4 — you can run the patch as a hotfix now if you’d like, but here’s the TRAC link for the patch:

    http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/18158

    With this, you can do …

        $my_query = new WP_Query( 
        array( 
            'meta_query' => array( 
                array(
                    'key' => 'foo',
                    'compare' => 'NOT EXISTS'
                )
            ) 
        ) 
    );

    or, swap it out for ‘compare’ => ‘EXISTS’ instead if you like.

    -George

  2. You can use posts_where filter hook and create a Subquery to exclude all posts with the meta_key of video:

    // Create a new filtering function that will add our where clause to the query
function filter_where_WPSE_18787( $where = '' ) {

    $where .= " AND ID NOT IN ( SELECT DISTINCT post_id from $wpdb->postmeta WHERE meta_key = 'video' )";
    return $where;
}
add_filter( 'posts_where', 'filter_where_WPSE_18787' ); 

$fsquery = new WP_Query( 
    array ( 
        'posts_per_page' => 1,
        'featured' => 'yes'
        ));

remove_filter('posts_where', 'filter_where_WPSE_18787' ); 

  3. $my_query = new WP_Query( 
        array( 
            'meta_query' => array( 
                array(
                    'key' => 'foo',
                    'compare' => 'NOT EXISTS'
                )
            ) 
        ) 
    );

    used only in WP 3.5. It’s still a beta version at the moment.