retrieve meta key when checkbox is used

Question

I created a meta box with a value "home" of type checkbox, however I'm having hard times retrieving into the loop, I'm using this code into the loop:

 <?php if(get_post_meta(get_the_ID(), 'home') == '1' ) : ?> 
 <!--BLABLA TO DISPLAY -->
 <?php endif; ?>

if the checkbox is checked it should work like this, however is not... the most funny part is if I set it to '0', it displays all the other pages where is not checked.

Any guess?

Thanks in advanced

UPDATE

Page Options code

 $meta_boxes[] = array(
'id' => 'page-options',
'title' => __('Page Layout', 'andrewslab'),
'pages' => array('page'),
'context' => 'normal',
'priority' => 'high',
 'fields' => array(


 array(
        'name' => __('Home', 'andrewslab'),
        'id' => 'home',
        'type' => 'checkbox',
        'desc' => 'Display in <strong>home page</strong>',
        'std' => ''
        )
      )
 );

Template Code

 <?php
     global $wp_query;
     $args = array_merge( $wp_query->query, array( 'post_type' => 'page' , 'showposts' => '4' ) );
     query_posts( $args );

 ?>
 <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post() ; $meta = get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), 'home', true ); ?>
     <?php if( checked( $meta, 1, false ) ) : ?>
       <!--BLABLA-->

     <?php endif ?>     

 <?php endwhile; ?>
 <?php wp_reset_query() ?>

Basically I need to enter into the loop only if the checkbox is checked.

Answer 1

You need to add the third parameter to get_post_meta(), so get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), 'home', true ) should at least get you closer. Just a note, in future, try doing a var_dump() or print_r() on the variable(s) in the condition that are evaluating in an unexpected manner, if you'd done that here you would have seen that it was outputting an array, not the int/string you were expecting :)

Answer 2

Checkboxes are a bit of a strange breed with respect to form data. They only get sent in the $_POST data if they are set. Your data-validation callback for saving custom post meta data should use an isset() conditional as part of checkbox validation, and then set the value accordingly.

Also, when you call get_post_meta(), the results are an array, so you'll need to look at the first value of that array. I usually use something like this:

$custom = get_post_meta(get_the_ID(), 'home');
$custom_home = ( isset( $custom[0] ? $custom[0] : false );

Answer 3

Wordpress has a convenient way of doing this. There's actually a checked (be sure to read the documentation) function built in that you can use. So for your example:

$meta = get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), 'home', true );
if( checked( $meta, 1, false ) ) {
    // do stuff
}

And as @m0r7if3r said, you need to add true as the third argument to get_post_meta.

Not tested but should work.

Answer 4

After some research I was able to solve it... looks like it understand the values as 'on' and 'off'... with this validation it works like charm

 <?php if(get_post_meta(get_the_ID(), 'home', true) == 'on') : ?>

<?php the_title() ?>

 <?php endif; ?>