Taxonomy terms not properly displaying as array

Question

I'm trying to get posts with custom taxonomies. I have this function below:

public function get_job_categories_all () {
    $get_categories = get_terms( array(
        'taxonomy' => 'job_listing_category',
        'hide_empty' => false,
    ) );

    $categories = array();
    foreach ( $get_categories as $cat ) {
        array_push($categories, $cat->slug);
    }
    
    return $categories;
}

I'm calling this function on two other functions

private function get_job_dashboard_query_args( $posts_per_page = -1, $post_status = null, $category = null ) {
    $post_status_array = [ 'publish', 'expired', 'pending', 'draft', 'preview' ];
    if (!$post_status) { // if not set
        $post_status = $post_status_array;
    }
    
    $job_categories = $this->get_job_categories_all;
    
    if (!$category) {
        $category = $job_categories;
    }

    $job_dashboard_args = array(
        'post_type'           => 'job_listing',
        'post_status'         => $post_status, // [ 'publish', 'expired', 'pending', 'draft', 'preview' ],
        'ignore_sticky_posts' => 1,
        'posts_per_page'      => $posts_per_page,
        'orderby'             => 'date',
        'order'               => 'desc',
        'author'              => get_current_user_id(),
        'tax_query' => array( // tax_query = taxonomy query, queried under $wpdb->term_taxonomy
            array(
                'taxonomy' => 'job_listing_category',
                'field'    => 'slug',
                'terms'    => $category,
            ),
        ),
    );

    if ( $posts_per_page > 0 ) {
        $job_dashboard_args['offset'] = ( max( 1, get_query_var( 'paged' ) ) - 1 ) * $posts_per_page;
    }
    return apply_filters( 'job_manager_get_dashboard_jobs_args', $job_dashboard_args );
}

public function job_dashboard( $atts ) {
    ...

    $categories_all_array = $this->get_job_categories_all();

    $new_atts            = shortcode_atts( [
        'posts_per_page' => '25',
        'post_status'    => [ 'publish', 'expired', 'pending', 'draft', 'preview' ],
        'category'       => $categories_all_array,
    ], $atts );

    $posts_per_page = $new_atts['posts_per_page'];
    $post_status    = $new_atts['post_status'];
    $categories_all = $new_atts['category'];

    wp_enqueue_script( 'wp-job-manager-job-dashboard' );
    ob_start();

    $jobs = new WP_Query( $this->get_job_dashboard_query_args( $posts_per_page, $post_status, $categories_all) );
    
    ...
}

I can do a shortcode like [job_dashboard category='healthcare'] but doing something like [job_dashboard category='healthcare, others'] returns no results when it's supposed to return posts with either of those two categories. I tried hardcoding them inside the brackets and they work fine but when I use a variable, they don't. What could be wrong?

Answer 1

I found out that I forgot to implode the array values on public function job_dashboard( $atts ) function. Updated code below:

private function get_job_dashboard_query_args( $posts_per_page = -1, $post_status = null, $category = null ) {
    $post_status_array = [ 'publish', 'expired', 'pending', 'draft', 'preview' ];
    if (!$post_status) { // if not set
        $post_status = $post_status_array;
    }
    
    $job_categories = $this->get_job_categories_all;
    
    if ($category) {
        $category = explode(",", $category);
    } elseif (!$category) {
        $category = $job_categories;
    }

    $job_dashboard_args = array(
        'post_type'           => 'job_listing',
        'post_status'         => $post_status, // [ 'publish', 'expired', 'pending', 'draft', 'preview' ],
        'ignore_sticky_posts' => 1,
        'posts_per_page'      => $posts_per_page,
        'orderby'             => 'date',
        'order'               => 'desc',
        'author'              => get_current_user_id(),
        'tax_query' => array( // tax_query = taxonomy query, queried under $wpdb->term_taxonomy
            array(
                'taxonomy' => 'job_listing_category',
                'field'    => 'slug',
                'terms'    => $category,
            ),
        ),
    );

    if ( $posts_per_page > 0 ) {
        $job_dashboard_args['offset'] = ( max( 1, get_query_var( 'paged' ) ) - 1 ) * $posts_per_page;
    }
    return apply_filters( 'job_manager_get_dashboard_jobs_args', $job_dashboard_args );
}

public function job_dashboard( $atts ) {
    ...

    $categories_all_array = $this->get_job_categories_all();

    $new_atts            = shortcode_atts( [
        'posts_per_page' => '25',
        'post_status'    => [ 'publish', 'expired', 'pending', 'draft', 'preview' ],
        'category'       => implode(",", $categories_all_array), // output: item1,item2,item3 ...
    ], $atts );

    $posts_per_page = $new_atts['posts_per_page'];
    $post_status    = $new_atts['post_status'];
    $categories_all = $new_atts['category'];

    wp_enqueue_script( 'wp-job-manager-job-dashboard' );
    ob_start();

    $jobs = new WP_Query( $this->get_job_dashboard_query_args( $posts_per_page, $post_status, $categories_all) );
    
    ...
}