I have this custom query that Im working on and I need to be able to query output values as well as actual stored values. Example: $string = "This is #*&^% a test"; $string = preg_replace('/[^(\x20-\x7F)]*/','', $string); $string_clean = $string So if I echo $string_clean, I'll get this: This is a test Which is fine, but the issue is that the $string_clean value isn't a stored value (just an output), so I dont know how to use its value in a query, being that the query results are based on stored database values. Im using a multi array capability of the wordpress query ([**here**][1]). Basically, I use two keys in the array with AND as the meta_compare. Ideally, I would like to be able to query both value (stored and output). Im interested in this as a search functionality for my query. Can someone help me with this? How do I do it?. Or if someone knows of a better solution please let me know. Thanks a mil [1]: http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/WP_Query#Custom_Field_Parameters