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  • Anonymous
    (Private)  January 6, 2015 at 12:55 pm #9820

    I have an issue I’m not sure how to deal with regarding how a post type is initially sorted. All of the posts have a custom ACF text field with a number that is formatted like a date: 2000/05 (Full year/mm). The problem is that it is not a date field, merely a text field and I’m not sure how to change the sort_by query to correctly sort the posts (newest to oldest) using this field.

    I’m using a custom template coded like this:

    if ( $query->have_posts() )
{
	while ($query->have_posts())
	{
		$query->the_post();
		
		// the article

	}
}

    How can I correctly change the query to sort the posts through my ACF custom field?

    Ross Moderator
    (Private)  January 6, 2015 at 5:55 pm #9838

    Hey Stian

    Sorting by date requires a specific save format as mentioned on the plugin homepage.

    The best way to save the date in the database in ACF is YYYYMMDD – this means that if you sort the date numerically you will also be sorting chronologically – this is the best way for saving a date in any database in general (or as a timestamp) as numeric operations are fast and easy to perform.

    You could try the following but I cannot guarantee it will work without updating the way you store your dates:

    In S&F defaults & settings box, click the posts tab.

    In here you have your default sort order, in the first option choose Meta Value – then some more options will appear.

    Choose your meta key, and try sorting by numeric – I’m hoping this will do what you require – but I cannot guarantee it without making some modifications to the way you store your dates.

    Thanks

    Anonymous
    (Private)  January 7, 2015 at 9:57 am #9875

    Hey Ross, thanks for the quick answer.

    I’m afraid this didn’t work, however it almost did. The posts now get sorted like this:

    2014/01
    2014/07
    2014/03
    2014/05
    2014/02
    2013/03
    2013/06
    2013/02

    etc.

    It sorts the first number, but completely ignores the second part (which makes sense as it’s not saving as a date).

    I was hoping there was a way for me to convert the field in the query, as converting this text field to a date field would be too much work (hundreds of posts), unless you could recommend a more automated way to do this?

    Anonymous
    (Private)  January 8, 2015 at 2:40 pm #9936

    Hey Ross,

    Sorry to bump this up, but do you have any thoughts on this?

    Ross Moderator
    (Private)  January 8, 2015 at 2:49 pm #9939

    Hey Stian

    I was having a think but unfortunately not.

    When you use this format 2013/02 it is very had for most software to be able to treat it properly as a date for comparisons and sorting.

    There are two (maybe three) things you can do as far as I can see:

    1) Manually change them all…
    2) Create a custom script, which loops through each post, pulls the meta data, reformats it, and updates the post
    3) Use a plugin – there may or may not be one out there for your needs – what you need is quite specific… but this is a google I just did which may yield some results https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=bulk%20edit%20post%20meta%20fields and I also found this – https://wordpress.org/plugins/custom-bulkquick-edit/

    Hope that helps!!

    Anonymous
    (Private)  January 8, 2015 at 3:16 pm #9944

    Ross,

    Thank you. This helps a lot and I think I might be able to solve it like this 🙂

    Anonymous
    (Private)  January 12, 2015 at 8:58 am #10126

    Hi Ross,

    I didn’t notice before, but there doesn’t even seem to be a way to sort by custom date..

    I managed to convert all the fields to correctly saved date fields, but sorting by meta value only gives two options: numeric and alphabetic.

    How can I actually sort this as a custom date?

    Ross Moderator
    (Private)  January 12, 2015 at 1:52 pm #10129

    Have you tried those yet?

    The beauty of storing dates as timestamps, or in YYYYMMDD format – is because it is numerical sorting!

    🙂

    Anonymous
    (Private)  January 12, 2015 at 2:45 pm #10138

    Fantastic, didn’t realize! 😀

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