Question

I have created a custom post type for my portfolio page. I have two custom fields:

1. Product URL
2. Case Study URL

My issue is using the values of these custom fields in my theme. Currently I fetch their values by running this:

<?php 
$loop = new WP_Query(array('post_type' => 'portfolio', 'posts_per_page' => 3)); 
while ( $loop->have_posts() ) : $loop->the_post();

$custom = get_post_custom($post->ID);
$product_url = $custom['product_url'];
foreach ($product_url as $key => $value)
echo $key . " => " . $value . "<br />";

$custom = get_post_custom($post->ID);
$case_study_url = $custom['case_study_url'];
foreach ($case_study_url as $key => $value)
echo $key . " => " . $value . "<br />";

?>

// All my mark-up

<?php endwhile; ?>

Idk if my terminology will make sense here, but isn’t there a way I could run the foreach loop so that it displays the product_url and the case_study_url?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Sincerely.

Answer 1

If you’re only retrieving two values, there’s no reason to use get_post_custom. Consider using Get Post Meta instead:

<?php 
$loop = new WP_Query(array('post_type' => 'portfolio', 'posts_per_page' => 3)); 
while ( $loop->have_posts() ) : $loop->the_post();

$product_url = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'product_url', true);
$case_study_url = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'case_study_url', true);
echo "Product: $product_url, Case Study: $case_study_url";
?>

// All my mark-up

<?php endwhile; ?>

UPDATE:

get_post_custom is better when dealing with meta-fields that aren’t specific to the structure of your template. So if you want to give the user the ability to add their own fields and have them show up on the page without actually specifying any keys yourself, you can do something like this:

<?php 
$loop = new WP_Query(array('post_type' => 'portfolio', 'posts_per_page' => 3)); 
while ( $loop->have_posts() ) : $loop->the_post();

$all_meta = get_post_custom($post->ID);
foreach($all_meta as $meta_key => $meta_value)
    echo "$meta_key: $meta_value<br/>";

endwhile;
?>

Bear in mind that when setting values that utilize the same key, the result will be of type array.

So let’s say you have a Custom Field called “Foo”, and you set it to “Bar”. Then you have another custom field called “Foo” and set that one to “Baz”. When you do this:

<?php
$loop = new WP_Query(array('post_type' => 'portfolio', 'posts_per_page' => 3)); 
while ( $loop->have_posts() ) : $loop->the_post();
    $foo = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'Foo');
    print_r($foo);
endwhile;
?>

You will get a series of values, rather than just a simple string since two values utilize the same key. By setting the third parameter to ‘true’ in get_post_meta (as seen in our above example), you are specifying that the return value must be a string.

Just play around with it, and you’ll see what I mean. Hope this helps.