How do I read the value of a custom field of the page?

Question

When creating custom page templates, how do I get the value of a custom field of the displayed page?

Answer 1

Use the get_post_meta function.

Answer 2

WordPress Custom Fields

WordPress custom fields contain a key and a value. To get both <?php the_meta(); ?> will return

<ul class='post-meta'>
<li><span class='post-meta-key'>your_key:</span> your_value</li>
</ul>

To return a value stored for a specific key use:

<?php get_post_custom_values('my_key', $post_id); ?>**

If a post contained more than 1 value for the same key you can use a foreach loop to output all of them i an array:

<?php    
  $mykey_values = get_post_custom_values('my_key');
  foreach ( $mykey_values as $key => $value ) {
    echo "$key  => $value <br />"; 
  }  
?>

This will return:

0 => First value 
1 => Second value
2 => Third value 

To return an array of keys within all custom fields use:

<?php get_post_custom_keys($post_id); ?> 

Adding custom fields to a post: