Custom Field sort not working (WP 3.8.1)

Question

I am trying to sort a custom wp_query using the date format YYYYMMDD (php: date('Ymd') ). This will not be regarded as date field, but rather as a numeric one stored in custom field.

My WP-QUERY code is the following:

$today = date("Ymd", strtotime(current_time('mysql')));

$args = array(
 "post_type" => "post",
 "post_status" => "publish",
 "posts_per_page" => -1,
 "cat" => 13,
 "meta_query" => array(
  array(
   "key" => "event-date",
   'type' => 'NUMERIC',
   'value' => $today,
   "compare" => ">="
  )
 ),
 'orderby' => 'meta_value_num',                            
 'order' => 'ASC'
 );
 $eventsbody = new WP_Query($args);  
 var_dump($eventsbody->request);

upon the dump it produces the following code:

"SELECT wp_posts.* FROM wp_posts INNER JOIN wp_term_relationships ON (wp_posts.ID = wp_term_relationships.object_id) INNER JOIN wp_postmeta ON (wp_posts.ID = wp_postmeta.post_id) LEFT JOIN wp_icl_translations t ON wp_posts.ID = t.element_id AND t.element_type LIKE 'post\_%' LEFT JOIN wp_icl_languages l ON t.language_code=l.code AND l.active=1 WHERE 1=1 AND ( wp_term_relationships.term_taxonomy_id IN (13) ) AND wp_posts.post_type IN ('post', 'page', 'attachment') AND (wp_posts.post_status = 'publish') AND ( (wp_postmeta.meta_key = 'event-date' AND CAST(wp_postmeta.meta_value AS DATE) >= '20140326') ) AND (t.language_code='el' OR t.language_code IS NULL ) GROUP BY wp_posts.ID ORDER BY wp_posts.post_date ASC " 

The problem is, that it disregards the meta_value_num ordering and does the order by wp_posts.post_date. Is it a wp3.8.1 problem?

Answer 1

I think your query arguments are missing meta_key, which in this case should be 'event-date'. You need it outside the meta query for orderby to work. Try this:

$today = date("Ymd", strtotime(current_time('mysql')));

$args = array(
  "post_type" => "post",
  "post_status" => "publish",
  "posts_per_page" => -1,
  "cat" => 13,
  "meta_query" => array(
   array(
    "key" => "event-date",
    'type' => 'NUMERIC',
    'value' => $today,
    "compare" => ">="
  )
  ),
  'meta_key' => 'event-date', // meta_key added
  'orderby' => 'meta_value_num',                            
  'order' => 'ASC'
  );
  $eventsbody = new WP_Query($args);