Advanced Custom Fields Order By Meta Key value

Question

I have a simple Wordpress query that lists my custom post type results.

Currently, they list in order of date the post was created.

I need them to list in the order of a custom field I have named 'release_year' from most recent to oldest.

I am having trouble incorporating that second query to my results.

How do I ensure all posts are sorted by release_year ??

ANy help appreciated.

<?php 
  $posts = get_posts(array(
  'post_type'           => 'discography',
  'posts_per_page'      => -1,
  'meta_key'            => 'release_category',
  'meta_value'          => 'album',
  'orderby'             => 'meta_value',
  'order'               => 'ASC',
  ));            
if( $posts ): ?>

Answer 1

You need to order by release_year however you're specifying release_category as the meta key therefore it has no way of knowing that you want to use the other key instead.

The main issue you face is you can't have two meta_key args. Instead you need to make use of the meta_query argument.

$posts = get_posts(array(
   'post_type'           => 'discography',
   'posts_per_page'      => -1,
   'meta_key'            => 'release_year',
   'orderby'             => 'meta_value_num',
   'order'               => 'DESC',
   'meta_query'          => array(
        array(
            'key'   => 'release_category',
            'value' => 'album',
        ),
    ),
));   

The meta query is used to set the release category and the meta_key value changed to the key you'd like to order by. I've also set order to meta_value_num which is important when dealing with numerical values. Finally you need to use descending order.

Further reading: https://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_Meta_Query

https://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_Query#Order_.26_Orderby_Parameters