Can't print out returned value

Question

Function to return the meta value as per author.

 <?php 

function ac_author_score() {

    $userID = get_the_author_meta( 'ID' );
    $query = array (
        'author' => $userID,
        'posts_per_page' => -1
    );
    $queryObject = new WP_Query($query);

    while( $queryObject->have_posts() ) : $queryObject->the_post();

    global $post;
    $postID = $post->ID;

    $score = $score + intval( get_post_meta( 'ratings_score', $postID, true ) );

    endwhile; 

    wp_reset_query();

    if ( $score > 0 )
        $score = '+' . $score;

    return $score;


}
?>

So it's returning the $score, but I can't get it to output anything with echo etc.

How do I actually print/echo the returned value?

Answer 1

Correct way to get the ratings for individual authors.

This is for the author.php page. If you want to display it elsewhere on your site, for example to show the number of likes for the currently logged in user, then use get_current_user_id( 'ID' ); in place of get_the_author_meta.

 <?php 

    function author_rating_total() {
       $user_id = get_the_author_meta( 'ID' );
       $query = array (
           'author' => $user_id,
           'suppress_filters' => 'true',
           'posts_per_page' => -1
       );
       $queryObject = new WP_Query($query); while($queryObject->have_posts()) : $queryObject->the_post();

       $post_ratings_data = get_post_custom(get_the_id());
       $post_ratings_score = intval($post_ratings_data['ratings_score'][0]);

       $ratings_array[] = $post_ratings_score;

       endwhile; 

       $ratings_sum = array_sum($ratings_array);

       if ($ratings_sum > 0) {
             $ratings_sum = '' . $ratings_sum;
       }

       echo $ratings_sum;   

       wp_reset_query();
    }
    ?>

    <?php 

    echo author_rating_total();


    ?>