get_post_meta just returns Array

Question

Here's what I am trying to do:

I am trying to get one page in wordpress to pull data from custom fields in other pages. So that when a user creates a page and uses a particular custom field (in this case multiedit_Info), it will populate in the "target" page.

Here's my code that I am working with:

<?php $item = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'multiedit_Info', false); ?>
<div id="info-col">
<?php echo $item; ?>
</div>

I am currently using a plugin that create content blocks by using custom fields. And I want to get it so that a user can just create a new page with the custom fields and then have it display in an array on another page.

Not too sure if I am setting this up correctly or not. This is the first time I've ever used it so any help is appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

Ok, I found the solution I was looking for here:

getting all values for a custom field key (cross-post).

By using the function listed in the above post and then calling back the info in my template by using this:

<?php $my_info = get_meta_values( 'multiedit_Info', 'page' ); ?>

and then outputting those in a foreach:

<?php foreach ( $my_var as $item) :
echo "<p>$item</p>";
endforeach; ?>

Grabbed all the custom fields within all of the pages that are using them and then outputted them into a one page.

Thanks for the help!

Answer 2

When you set the third parameter of get_post_meta() to false, it returns an array of all the values mapped to that key - setting this parameter to true returns a single value.

So your code is correct. You'd get the exact same thing if you did something like this:

$test = array( "1", "2", "3" );
echo $test; // prints "Array"

If you want to view the contents of your array, you'll need to use print_r():

$item = get_post_meta( $post->ID, 'multiedit_Info', false );
echo print_r( $item );

If you were to do this with the $test array from my above example, you'd see:

Array
(
    [0] => "1"
    [1] => "2"
    [2] => "3"
)