This is more of an affirmation than a hack. Since the introduction of meta_query in WordPress 3.1, filtering posts by metadata has become significantly less painful. An added benefit is the ability to use meta_key to sort your results without having to filter by meta_value.
The trick is to let meta_query handle the actual filtering and include meta_key to pass a different meta field to the orderby argument.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 | $args = array( 'post_type' => 'put_post_type_here', /* use the new meta_query in WP 3.1 for filtering */ 'meta_query' => array( array( 'key' => 'put_filter_meta_key_here', 'value' => 'put_filter_meta_value_here', 'compare' => '=' ) ), /* use meta_key for sorting - but don't specify a meta value */ 'meta_key' => 'put_sorting_meta_value_here', /* then order by the meta_key above - use meta_value_num for numbers */ 'orderby' => 'meta_value', 'order' => 'ASC', ); query_posts( $args ); |
Keep in mind:
- This query only works for sorting by one meta value. Nested sorting will require a SQL query.
- Dates and times should be in a valid format for chronological sorting (you don’t want the system to misinterpret AM/PM
