Display value of custom field not working

Question

I am simply trying to print the value of a custom field. I have read all the documentation, tried out other people's suggestions, and nothing works. I can get it to print the ID #, but not the actual value I have in the field. I am using the Types plugin to create the field.

this prints the ID:

<?php echo get_the_ID($value, 'authorinfo', true); ?>

as well as:

<?php echo get_the_ID($key, 'authorinfo', true); ?>

this does nothing:

<?php get_post_meta( $post->ID, 'authorinfo', true ); ?>

this does nothing:

<?php echo get_post_meta(get_the_ID(), 'authorinfo', true); ?>

(I have a separate question on this site where the problem came up and a solution was offered but unfortunately it didn't work for me) - Display custom post type and custom fields within a Bootstrap Carousel

Here is all the code I'm working within in case that helps. I hope I'm doing something stupid here.

<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

    <div id="myCarousel" class="carousel">
        <div class="carousel-inner">

          <?php $the_query = new WP_Query(array(
            'post_type' => 'testimonial', 
            'posts_per_page' => 1 
            ));
            while ( $the_query->have_posts() ) : $the_query->the_post(); ?>
            <div class="item active" data-title="">
                <div class="slide-copy">
                    <?php the_content();?>
                    <span class="byline"><?php echo get_post_meta(get_the_ID(), 'authorinfo', true); ?></span>
                </div>
            </div>
            <?php endwhile; wp_reset_postdata(); ?>
            <?php $the_query = new WP_Query(array(
            'post_type' => 'testimonial', 
            'posts_per_page' => 5, 
            'offset' => 1 
            ));
            while ( $the_query->have_posts() ) : $the_query->the_post(); ?>
            <div class="item" data-title="">
                <div class="slide-copy">
                    <?php the_content();?>
                    <span class="byline"><?php echo get_post_meta(get_the_ID(), 'authorinfo', true); ?></span>
                </div>
            </div>

            <?php endwhile; wp_reset_postdata(); ?>
          </div>
        </div>
      </div><!-- end myCarousel -->

<?php endwhile; ?>      

EDIT/ADDITION

Since working with the Types plugin more, I am pretty sure this problem could be solved by using "types_render_field" instead of "get_post_meta". I don't have a place where I can test this, but I think this should help someone with a similar problem.

Answer 1

The Types plugin is making this about 10x harder than it needs to be, you'll have to look through their documentation on the issue, but from what I can tell they don't store items in the postmeta table in a straightforward way. I created a simple field with the plugin in a sandbox env and the meta_key for a field I named data was wpcf-data. You may want to take your post ID and do this in your DB:

SELECT * FROM wp_postmeta WHERE post_id = NNNN;

where NNNN is your post ID. You may see a wpcf-authorinfo key, that is likely then the key you should be passing to get_post_meta:

echo get_post_meta(get_the_ID(), 'wpcf-authorinfo', TRUE);

Answer 2

I would try:

echo get_post_meta( $the_query->post->ID, 'authorinfo', true);

although I do agree with Mridul Aggarwal that

<?php echo get_post_meta(get_the_ID(), 'authorinfo', true); ?>

should also work.