Order by custom field attribute

Question

I'm try to get the output of this post type to order by the staff name alphabetically and I can't seem to figure out if needs to be within the beginning array() or if I been do something within the foreach() loop.

Here's my constructed loop:

 <?php
 $mypost = array('post_type' => 'staff', 'posts_per_page' => 20, 'orderby' => 'staff-name',
    'order' => 'ASC' );
 $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){

echo'<li>
    <a href=" '. get_permalink() .' ">' . $i['staff-name'] . '</a>
    </li>
    ';
}
?>  

<?php endwhile; wp_reset_query(); ?>

The staff-name field hold the first and last name of the staff member, but for some reason it doesn't look like it's sorting them alphabetically correctly.

I do notice that if I change it from ASC to DESC it does change the order of the output, but it's not alphabetized. It's almost like it's ignoring the field staff-name and ordering it by the post ID instead.

Answer 1

You have to add:

'meta_key' => 'key_name'

to the arguments array in order to use the key with the orderby parameter. Additionally you have to have the orderby parameter like this:

'orderby' => 'meta_value'

But if you have the data you want to sort by saved into an array, like your code suggests, you have a problem. You won't be able to use it for sorting, take a look at the answer to this question WP_Query meta_query by array key for an explanation.

Answer 2

If your meta_key is 'staff-name', you don't want 'orderby' => 'staff-name', you want 'orderby=>'meta_value'

$mypost = array(
  'post_type' => 'staff', 
  'posts_per_page' => 20, 
  'meta_key' => 'staff-name', 
  'orderby' => 'meta_value', 
  'order' => 'ASC' 
);

This is the essence of the duplicate question and is explained in the Codex as well.