How we can get the user id by its display_name

5 comments

1. You can use the following function:

   function get_user_id_by_display_name( $display_name ) {
       global $wpdb;
   
       if ( ! $user = $wpdb->get_row( $wpdb->prepare(
           "SELECT `ID` FROM $wpdb->users WHERE `display_name` = %s", $display_name
       ) ) )
           return false;
   
       return $user->ID;
   }
   

   This is the same code get_user_by() uses, but since that function only allows ID, slug, email or login we have to create a new function.

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2. Use WP_User_Query.

   $args= array(
     'search' => 'Display Name', // or login or nicename in this example
     'search_fields' => array('user_login','user_nicename','display_name')
   );
   $user = new WP_User_Query($args);
   

   Just answered one very similar to this: How we can get the author ID by its Name

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3. I do not think that this has been mentioned, probably because it searches display_name as well as email address, URL, ID and username, this is more than required but worked well for my particular use case.

   function get_user_id_by_search( $search_term ) {
       $user = get_users(array('search' =>  $search_term));
   
       if (!empty($user))
           return $user[0]->ID;
   }
   

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4. Completely untested, but I can’t see anything in the code why it wouldn’t work to use get_users() with a meta query:

   $users = get_users( array(
       'meta_key' => 'display_name',
       'meta_value' => 'John Doe'
   ) );
   
   $user = ( ( isset( $users[0] ) ? $users[0] : false );
   
   $user_id = ( $user ? $user->ID : false );
   

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5. the wordpress user query by default doesn’t allow the display_name in search column even it’s added in , here is a solution http://manchumahara.com/2014/04/03/search-user-by-display-name-in-wordpress-sitewide/

   Example:

   $args= array(
     'search' => 'Display Name', // or login or nicename in this example
     'search_fields' => array('user_login','user_nicename','display_name')
   );
   $user = new WP_User_Query($args);
   

   The above query will not find for display_name

   you need to use this filter

   add_filter('user_search_columns', 'user_search_columns_bd' , 10, 3);
   
   function user_search_columns_bd($search_columns, $search, $this){
   
       if(!in_array('display_name', $search_columns)){
           $search_columns[] = 'display_name';
       }
       return $search_columns;
   }
   

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