Select From wpdb - Author/User Directory page

Question

I am working on a wordpress site where I have created a directory page(authors.php) that lists all users and certain author meta.

It works fine however I am trying to figure out how to only show users that have the required author meta filled out.

I've tried many different things but have not been able to achieve what I need. Here is my code

<?php
    $order = 'user_nicename';
$users = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * FROM $wpdb->users ORDER BY $order"); // query users

    foreach($users as $user) : // start users' profile "loop"
    ?> 

Everything else I try does not return any results. Is there a way to only select users with specific author meta fields filled out? Any help is appreciated, thanks.

Answer 1

You're probably better off to use get_users which returns an array of

<?php
// get all users, regardless of roll.  If you do need to restrict by
// role you can use the `role` argument: get_users(array('role' => 'author'));
$uses = get_users(array('orderby' => 'nicename'));

foreach ($users as $user) {
   // do stuff with $user, will have all the usual stuff, ID, user_email, etc
   echo '<p>', esc_html($user->ID), '</p>';
}

Alternatively, you can use the all_with_meta argument for the fields argument of get_users and get an array of WP_User objects back:

<?php

$users = get_users(array('fields' => 'all_with_meta'));

foreach ($users as $user) {
   // $user will be a WP_User object.
}

Is there a way to only select users with specific author meta fields filled out?

You can do this with get users as well! Just use the meta_query argument, which looks the same as WP_Query's meta_query argument.

<?php
$users = get_users(array(
    'meta_query' => array(
        array( 
            'key'   => 'whatever_your_meta_key_is',
            'value' => 'the_meta_value_you_want',
        )
     ),
));

foreach ($users as $user) {
    // do stuff with $user
}