Get ACF field key programmatically by field name

Question

I need to get the field key by field name in WordPress in the Advanced custom fields plugin (ACF).

The field is assigned to a post. I am in the loop of the post and I want to get the field key programmatically USING field name. The reason for this is because i'm creating a form where the field name 'options' will stay the same but will have different options in a select.

I am looping over a custom post type and expecting the field 'options' to be assigned to the post (each post will have unique options and so will have a unique field key so i can't just use the field key as this would be hard-coded to potentially another posts options)...

I'm in the loop of the post which should contain the custom field 'options' so I should be able to look for field key using post id and custom field name?

EDIT: I found this: https://gist.github.com/mcguffin/81509c36a4a28d9c682e

But it doesn't seem to work?

what do you mean with doesn't seem to work? – davejal Mar 07 '17 at 13:28 — davejal, Mar 07 '17 at 13:28

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 15 '19 at 08:26

5

The right way is to use acf_maybe_get_field function, just like that:

acf_maybe_get_field( 'field_name', false, false );

The arguments are: field name, post id (defaults to current post) and the most important strict which defaults to true, but we set it to false here to get field object even when it not yet exists for the post.

answered Oct 15 '19 at 08:26

Mindaugas Jakubauskas

146
1
5

Yup, this worked. Remember though that you're targeting a field name which can be the same for various custom fields (like "Rating" field for both Movies & Books custom post type - one can have 1 out of 10 select field assigned to the "rating" field name, while the other can have "good/bad" checkbox), so this is a bit of a risk. What I did is hardcoded the field key and then if there were no results, I used `acf_maybe_get_field`. – Chris Trynkiewicz Oct 15 '19 at 13:47
@ChrisTrynkiewicz it's not an issue, because one of the arguments is `post id` (it is obtained automatically if you leave it empty). So if you have a `rating` field for both Movies & Books custom post type, you'll get the key accordingly from which CPT you call the `acf_maybe_get_field` function. – Mindaugas Jakubauskas Oct 17 '19 at 06:09

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 07 '17 at 13:40

I think it would be easier to tackle the problem from a different perspective.

You can filter the options in a select field for each post. See https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/resources/dynamically-populate-a-select-fields-choices/

function acf_load_option_field_choices( $field ) {
    global $post;

    $current_id = $post->ID;

    switch ( $current_id ) {

        case 101: //Post ID 101

            $field[ 'choices' ] = array(
                'ferrari' => 'Ferrari',
                'lambo'   => 'Lambo',
                'toyota'  => 'Toyota',
                'volvo'   => 'Volvo'
            );

            break;

        case 202: // Post ID 202

            $field[ 'choices' ] = array(
                'youtube'       => 'Youtube',
                'facebook'      => 'Facebook',
                'twitter'       => 'Twitter',
                'stackoverflow' => 'Stack Overflow'
            );

            break;

    }

    // return the field
    return $field;

}

add_filter( 'acf/load_field/name=options', 'acf_load_color_field_choices' );

At that point you could pull options from global options or wherever you like, they don't need to be hard coded. This means the heavy lifting is done before, and then in the loop just loop over the options like a normal ACF Field.

Get ACF field key programmatically by field name

2 Answers2

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