Using Custom Post Meta Values in Shortcode

Question

I'm trying to display meta content from a custom post type in a shortcode. I'd like to simply provide a post_id and be able to display all the meta content.

[my_shortcode post_id=""]

I'm new to PHP and writing shortcodes, this seems as though it should be fairly simple... I know the following is wrong:

function promotion_function($atts) {
extract(shortcode_atts(array(
    'promo_id' => '',
), $atts));
global $post;
$meta_values = get_post_custom($promo_id, 'product_desc');

$output = $meta_values;
return $output;
}
add_shortcode('promotion', 'promotion_function');

The above code gives me the string "Array" in my page.

I can't find an example of how to do this, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

You cannot print an array directly. The most basic return value you could use is var_export( $meta_values, TRUE );.

This will create a text representation of the value.

Probably better is a little walker like

$output = '';

foreach( $meta_values as $key => $value )
    $output .= "$key = " . esc_html( end( $value ) ) . '<br />';

return $output;