Find count of WordPress users by role and search string for user name

Question

I want to get the total number of results after searching WordPress users by role and a string that matches the user name.

What I tried so far:

$args= array('echo'=>false, 'role' => 'author', 'search'=>$search_txt);
$user_query = new WP_User_Query($args);
$auth_count= $user_query->get_total();

But it returns 0 everytime.

Note:

Perhaps it can be done by:

$args= array('echo'=>false, 'role' => 'author', 'search'=>$search_txt);
$auth_count= count(get_users($args));

or by querying with

global $wpdb;

But is there any more resource friendly method?

Answer 1

Adding this as an answer here for reference for anyone searching for WP_User_Query stuff:

As per the docs The search field on WP_User_Query uses * for wildcard text search, and will search on login, nicename, email and URL, unless specified otherwise.

E.g. to match any name containing bob you need:

$args = array(
    'search'         => '*bob*'
);

$user_query = new WP_User_Query( $args );

Answer 2

This worked:

$search_txt replaced by esc_attr($search_txt).'*':

$args= array('echo'=>false, 'role' => 'author', 'search'=>esc_attr($search_txt).'*');
$user_query = new WP_User_Query($args);
$auth_count= $user_query->get_total();