Order by meta values

Question

I have 3 meta fields related to dates:

• year = 2012
• release_date = 14 November 2012
• release_date_db = 20121114

I need to show the posts from year 2012 sorted by release_date.

I made this:

query_posts('meta_key=year&meta_value=2012&order=ASC&posts_per_page=7');

How can I order posts by release_date or release_date_db?

Answer 1

You can do this by just looking for release_date_db:

function plugin_name_get_posts() {
    global $wpdb;
$the_posts = $wpdb->get_results( "SELECT * FROM $wpdb->posts, $wpdb->postmeta WHERE $wpdb->posts.ID = $wpdb->postmeta.post_id AND meta_key = 'release_date_db' AND meta_value >= 20120000 AND meta_value <= 20121231 ORDER BY meta_value ASC;", ARRAY_A );
 }