Query custom field with date

Question

I have a custom field that has a date picker. This date is in the format 11/12/2019. In my query I have the following:

$meta_query = array(
        array(
                    'key'       => 'date-available',
                    'value'     => date("m/d/Y"),
                    'compare'   => '<',
                ),

    );

This works in that it shows the posts where the custom date is less than the current date for this year and the December dates for this year don't show. But, for some reason the posts that have a date for 01/07/2020 still show. Anyone have an idea as to why?

Answer 1

According to the relevant article on the WordPress Codex, you should be able to add a type argument to the meta array. Resulting in something like this:

$meta_query = array(
    array(
        'key'       => 'date-available',
        'value'     => date("m/d/Y"),
        'compare'   => '<',
        'type'      => 'DATE'
    ),
);

It's worth noting, though (as Gopalakrishnan18 mentioned), MySQL expects a date format of Y-m-d; so you may need to update the format of the date in the database.