Get result from Custom Field in Custom Post type

Question

If trying to filter out some return results from a custom post type that has a custom field appended to it for location. I'm not too sure where I need to apply the case statement in my query. Or if I need to add it into the query when it pulls the info from the post type.

I currently have this:

<?php
$mypost = array('post_type' => 'staff', 'posts_per_page' => 20 );
$loop = new WP_Query( $mypost );
 ?>
<ul>

<?php while ( $loop->have_posts() ) : $loop->the_post();?>

<?php $items = get_post_meta( $post->ID, 'elements', true ); 
foreach( $items as $i){
if($i['location'] = 'local') {
echo'<li>
    <a href=" '. get_permalink() .' ">
    <img src=" '. wp_get_attachment_url( $i['small-image'] ) .'" />
    <h4>' . $i['staff-name'] . '</h4>
    <p>' . $i['short-title'] . '</p>
    ' . $i['3-areas-of-focus'] . '
    </li></a>

    ';
    }
}
?>  

<?php endwhile; wp_reset_query(); ?>
<div class="clearfix"></div>

</ul>

I have the custom field for the location as a checkbox, so inside the custom post type it shows:

local, out of town

The thing is that some staff members can have a location local and out of town, but some are just local.

So, I'm not sure if I need to have do a trim explode before or if there is some other way that I need to have it look up in the query or what.

Answer 1

Ok, I got it work.

Since the checkbox for the custom fields stores entires as a comma seperated value, I needed to explode the delimiter and then perfom another loop to parse the information.

Then I created two separate arguments to split the data and call it back within the echo.

Here's my final output of the code:

<?php
$mypost = array('post_type' => 'staff', 'posts_per_page' => 20 );
$loop = new WP_Query( $mypost );  
?>
<ul>

 <?php while ( $loop->have_posts() ) : $loop->the_post();?>

 <?php $items = get_post_meta( $post->ID, 'elements', true ); 

 foreach($items as $i) {

$loco = explode("," , $i['locations']);

    foreach ($loco as $l) {

        if ($l != 'local') {

            echo'<li>
                    <a href=" '. get_permalink() .' ">
                <img src=" '. wp_get_attachment_url( $i['small-image'] ) .'" />
                <h4>' . $i['staff-name'] . '</h4>
                <p>' . $i['short-title'] . '</p>
                ' . $i['3-areas-of-focus'] . '
                </li></a>
                ';
        }

    }
}
?>  

<?php endwhile; wp_reset_query(); ?>
<div class="clearfix"></div>

</ul>

I know this might not be the most elegant solution, but it's working within my custom post types.

Answer 2

Or if you already know what type of combinations can your custom post meta value have, you may want to do a comparison like:

if($i['location'] == 'local' || $i['location'] == 'out of town' || $i['location'] == 'local, out of town') {
// your code here
}

As a side note, to do a equality comparison in if statement, you need == instead of a single = equal sign. Single = sign will actually assign the variable the value which you want to compare and it will always return true.