Custom field “file” stopped working

You shouldn’t use the object parameters to get custom fields. I’d advice to use get_post_meta, pods_field or pods_display functions.
See: https://docs.pods.io/displaying-pods/
Especially this page: https://docs.pods.io/displaying-pods/wordpress-theme-templates/

Cheers, Jory

Dear Jory,

1. The links you provided didn’t help. They are not covering my problem.

2. I think get_post_meta() is too much because it returs a big array and I would have to pry the URL from it.

3. I renamed the field to dfile and finally managed to do it with this code:

$full_link = parse_url( $post->dfile["guid"] );
$file_link = $full_link[path];

This way when I go live I don’t have to bother with absolute paths.

I know you suggested that I should not use object parameters but they worked for $post->authors and $post->language.

But if you have any other suggestion how I could make it work better then I’m open for it.

Regards,
Peter

Hello @champdor

The fact that object parameters work has nothing to do with the fact that they shouldn’t be used. This is merely a fallback option to fetch post meta but you cannot rely on this to work at all times, as you’ve noticed.

Please, do actually fix your problem instead of changing names.

2. I think get_post_meta() is too much because it returs a big array and I would have to pry the URL from it.

This is incorrect. get_post_meta( $id, 'dfile' ) returns exactly the same as $post->dfile because there is no actual parameter dfile in the Post object. This is why the post object parses it as meta data internally.

Also, the guid should never ever be used anywhere.

In very short, the file field never stopped working. It’s the way you wrote your code that shouldn’t work at all. Please forgive me for being blunt with that statement.

Steps to get the file:

Option A: Using WordPress Core functions:

1) $file = get_post_meta( $post->ID, 'file', true ) or get_post_meta( $post->ID, 'dfile', true ).
Passing true as the third parameter will only return the single file data. This is how metadata works.

2) Get the ID: $file_id = is_numeric( $file ) ? $file : $file['ID'];.

3) Get the file URL: $file_url = wp_get_attachment_url( file_id );

Option B: Using Pods functions (As seen in the doc I referred to in my first comment.):

$file = pods_field( 'dfile._src' ); (note the ._src).

Good luck!
Cheers, Jory

Jory,

The pods_field solution works like a charm.
OK, I will never ever use guid ??
Ever learning.

Thank you for your time and support, I appreciate.
Best,
Champdor

Hi @champdor

You’re welcome! The best way to say thanks is to leave a 5 star review at https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/pods/ and (if you’re feeling especially generous) become a Friend of Pods at https://friends.pods.io/

Cheers, Jory

Hi Jory,

I still have a problem, sorry for that.

It turns out that the Pods solution above is not working on the English page, only on Hungarian (default language) page. It seems that neither of the two solution is giving back the dfile field value.

A made a nice dump of the variables:
https://r0g3rs.posdev.hu/en/szakmai-anyagok/

My code looks like this:

// Pods solution
$pods_full_link = parse_url( pods_field( 'dfile._src' ) );
$pods_file_link = $pods_full_link[path];

// WP Core solution
$file = get_post_meta( $post->ID, 'dfile', true );
$file_id = is_numeric( $file ) ? $file : $file['ID'];
$file_url = wp_get_attachment_url( $file_id );
$full_link = parse_url( $file_url );
$file_link = $full_link[path];

The strange thing is that title, language CF, tags and year field is still working.

Can you help in this?

Regards,
Champdor

Hello @champdor

This is most likely an issue with WPML in syncing the metadata. Did you enable sync on that field? If so, disable it. The translation should link to the translated file, not the same.

You could also wrap getting the dfile ID with this filter: https://wpml.org/wpml-hook/wpml_object_id/
In that case you should use the WP core solution.

Cheers, Jory