Title: The issue with using WP_Query
Last modified: January 11, 2024

---

# The issue with using WP_Query

 *  Resolved [weweloo](https://wordpress.org/support/users/weweloo/)
 * (@weweloo)
 * [2 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/the-issue-with-using-wp_query/)
 * 
   I have registered metadata for my posts, and the metadata is an array containing
   numeric elements, for example, [1, 3, 5]. I need to use `WP_Query` to retrieve
   a list of posts based on the condition that this metadata array includes a specified
   value, such as 5. However, the code I’ve written is not successfully fetching
   the post data, and I’m not sure where the issue lies. I hope you can help me 
   take a look.
 *     ```wp-block-code
       $query_args =  array(
         'post_type'  => 'work',
         'posts_per_page' => 10,
         'meta_query' => array(
           array(
             'key' => 'meta_key',
             'value' => 5,
             'compare' => '=',
           ),
         ),
       );
   
       $query = new WP_Query($query_args);
       ```
   

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  Thread Starter [weweloo](https://wordpress.org/support/users/weweloo/)
 * (@weweloo)
 * [2 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/the-issue-with-using-wp_query/#post-17335771)
 * change to ‘compare’ => ‘LIKE’ resolved.
 *  Moderator [bcworkz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bcworkz/)
 * (@bcworkz)
 * [2 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/the-issue-with-using-wp_query/#post-17336750)
 * I’m glad you found a solution, but FWIW `LIKE` queries aren’t very efficient.
   Depending on the size of your DB and the nature of your query, it may not make
   any noticeable difference. You might try this instead:
 *     ```
           array(
             'key' => 'meta_key',
             'value' => '5',
             'compare' => '=',
           ),
       ```
   
 * Added quotes to `5`, making it a string value instead of integer. All WP meta
   values are always saved as string values, even if they were initially sourced
   as integers. The meta_value DB field’s type is VARCHAR. If this even works, it’d
   be better than a `LIKE` query.
 * Another possibility would be:
 *     ```
           array(
             'key' => 'meta_key',
             'value' => 5,
             'compare' => '=',
             'type' => 'NUMERIC',
           ),
       ```
   
 * This type casts the saved value to an integer. Or you can ignore all of this 
   due to the “if it works don’t fix it” maxim 🙂
 *  Thread Starter [weweloo](https://wordpress.org/support/users/weweloo/)
 * (@weweloo)
 * [2 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/the-issue-with-using-wp_query/#post-17337306)
 * I tried your method, but still couldn’t get the results. I switched to using 
   a database query approach, and that allows for precise matching.
 *     ```wp-block-code
       global $wpdb;
       $sql = "SELECT post_id FROM $wpdb->postmeta 
         WHERE meta_key='meta_key' 
         AND meta_value like '%:" . esc_sql($post_id)  . ";%'";
       $found_posts = $wpdb->get_col($sql);
       if (empty($found_posts)) $found_posts = [0];
       $query_args = array(
         'post_type' => 'work',
         'post_status' => 'publish',
         'posts_per_page' => 10,
         'post__in' => $found_posts
       );
       ```
   

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

The topic ‘The issue with using WP_Query’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Developing with WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/wp-advanced/)
 * 3 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [weweloo](https://wordpress.org/support/users/weweloo/)
 * Last activity: [2 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/the-issue-with-using-wp_query/#post-17337306)
 * Status: resolved

## Topics

### Topics with no replies

### Non-support topics

### Resolved topics

### Unresolved topics

### All topics