Is there a way combine posts meta_name?

Question

I want to know if there is a way that 2 different custom fields that have basicly the same value function to be combined.

1) meta_name: my_link and meta_value: a link 2) meta_name: other_link and meta_value: other link

It should work like this: The general call in my template is

<?php if ( get_post_meta($post->ID, 'my_link', true) ) : ?>

<?php echo $my_link; ?>

<?php endif; ?>

So if in the post is present meta_name: other_link and not my_link and in the template is queried my_link, I want the other_link meta_name to be recognized as meta_name: my_link.

I searched all over. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

you can use the same meta_key for multiple values, for example:

meta_key - 'links' meta_value - 'link1'

meta_key - 'links' meta_value - 'link2'

then you can get the meta as an array of links:

$links = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'links');
if ($links){
    foreach ($links as $link){
        echo $link;
    }
}

Answer 2

Why don't you retrieve both values and then decide which to use? As (messy) one liner it can be expressed like this:

if(
    ( $my_link = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'my_link', true) )
    ||
    ( $my_link = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'other_link', true) )
    )
    echo $my_link;