Using variable in WordPress loop as criteria

Question

I have created a widget that has a dropdown with the 3 choices, Sale, Rent or Both, there is a WP loop to display the results, if Sale or Rent is chosen the query works fine, but if Both is chosen it shows no results.

$sale_or_rent = $instance['feat_prop_sale_or_rent'];
if ( $sale_or_rent == 'Both' ) {
    $sale_or_rent = 'Sale,Rent';
}

Loop criteria

array (
  'key'     => 'sale_or_rent',
  'compare' => '=',
  'value'       => $sale_or_rent,
),

Can I use the $sale_or_rent in the way that I have in the criteria to denote I want both Sale and Rent to displayed, or where have I gone wrong, if I type in 'sale','rent' then I only get the first one e.g. sale how can I add both so it is Sale or Rent to display.

Answer 1

You need an IN comparison and array if you want to match multiple values.

array (
  'key'     => 'sale_or_rent',
  'compare' => 'IN',
  'value'   => array('Sale', 'Rent'),
),