Getting Posts By Taxonomy Or Meta Field With WP-API v2.0

Mar 03, 2016 UPDATED:

Updated all routes in this post so now should be compatible with WP API V2 beta 12.

Feb 28, 2016 UPDATED: 

Just realised since v2 beta 4, /posts WP_Query vars was moved back to filter param. I'll update all routes in this post ASAP.

In the post adding fields to the JSON response of the WP REST API, you’ve learned about how to manipulate the data from the WP REST API (WP-API). Another topic I got asked very often, is how to get posts by certain filters – mostly taxonomy and meta field. So today let’s talk about it.

Before we get started, if you’re looking for the workarounds for WP-API v1.x, Josh has written great tutorials for you. Here are the links of them:

  1. Working with Taxonomies Using the JSON REST API
  2. Working with Meta Data Using the JSON REST API

In the following article, I’ll show you the quick answers and a more bigger picture beyond them. If you’re not interested in the later one, feel free to skip it.

The Quick Answers

*** Please note, starting from WP API v2 beta 4, you need to set "show_in_rest" => true when registering a custom post type or taxonomy, to get it exposed to the JSON response. ***

So here are them. If you want to get posts by taxonomy with WP-API v2.0, you can use the endpoint/route like this: (job-type is the taxonomy and manager is the term you want to match)

wp-json/wp/v2/posts?filter[job-type]=manager

Please note if you set the query_var to false when registering the custom taxonomy, you’ll need to change the parameters to:

wp-json/wp/v2/posts/?filter[taxonomy]=job-type&filter[term]=manager

As to the default taxonomy – tag, the rule applies too:

wp-json/wp/v2/posts/?filter[tag]=love

But you need to be careful that with another default taxonomy – category, the parameter to use is categor_name, so it’s like:

wp-json/wp/v2/posts/?filter[category_name]=uncategorized

Get Posts By Meta Field Is Not Available By Default

When it comes to meta fields, you might already know that this is not working with WP-API by default (for security reason). When using the terms “by default”, you must be very happy to expect a workaround to hack it. And almost everything magic in WordPress is related to a hook – action or filter, so which is to the rescue in this case?

That’s it: the rest_query_vars filter. Here’s how to use it:

With the hook, now you can use the route below to query posts by meta:

wp-json/wp/v2/posts?filter[meta_key]=MY-KEY&filter[meta_value]=MY-VALUE

BTW, If you’re interested in getting custom post types worked with WP-API v2, please refer to the tips shared by @joneslloyd.

What about meta_query for complex meta key/value pairs?

If you want to query posts based on multiple meta key/value pairs, you must use meta_query to do so. As the example above, we also need to add it to the valid query variables, like this:

And then you can use meta_query with WP API v2. I know some people stuck in how to write arrays as GET/POST parameters, since meta_query is an array composited by arrays, which looks pretty scary when thinking of converting it to URL parameters for /posts route in WP API.

Luckily I found MailChimp have documented it in their API docs, be sure to check it out!

What’s The Bigger Picture?

When I was a junior developer (around 2007 – 2008), one of the things bothered me most is when the library or code I was working with wasn’t well documented. To be honest, back to those days I could barely get the job done even when the documentation was thoroughly. For example, I couldn’t build a web application with Zend framework on my own, which was very well documented then as I recall.

Years went by luckily I developed a few problem solving skills on programming, one of them is to refer to the source code when I can’t get clear answers from the documentation.

The series of building themes with AngularJS and WP REST API was focus on the AngularJS in the first 14 posts. But then I realized I need to spend more time with WP REST API since sometimes the questions from my readers can be solved easily if they understand better how the WP-API or WP_Query works.

It’s all about the query_vars

So let’s take a look at a simple but powerful function from the source code of WP-API:

This get_allowed_query_vars function is from the WP_REST_Posts_Controller class, which is in charge of what query variables (that we pass to the route like category and tag) can be used to get posts with WP-API.

This function does the following jobs:

  1. Line 16: Get all valid query variables from $wp->public_query_vars. We’ll introduce what exactly they are later.
  2. Line 18-33: If the user can edit_posts, she/he can access more query variables with $wp->private_query_vars, we’ll also talk about them later.
  3. Line 35: There are three more query variables added by WP-API: posts_per_page, ignore_sticky_posts and post_parent
  4. Line 47: At the end of this function, we can use the filter rest_query_vars to modify all the query variables available. For example we can add or remove variables here. (We just learned the trick minutes ago.)

The public and private query variables lists

There’s a page on the WordPress codex for this but it seems not quite completed, so let’s look into the source code again, but in WordPress itself this time.

Tracing to the wp-includes/class-wp.php, you’ll see the two variables we’re looking for: $public_query_vars and $private_query_vars. Besides these variables when we register custom post types or taxonomies, if we set the query_var to a string (can’t be empty string of course), it will be joined to the $public_query_vars family.

Why posts_per_page Doesn’t Work (At Least In v2.0-beta3)

Now we know how many query variables are available. But after some tests I found a very interesting fact: the posts_per_page parameter isn’t working.

I took another look at the source code of WP-API. From the same class (WP_REST_Posts_Controller), the get_items function helped me to figure that out:

At line 15 (from the gist above), you can see the WP-API actually gets posts_per_page from another parameter called per_page but not the posts_per_page itself. I haven’t investigate every piece of code in WP-API so I can’t think of a good reason why it does so.

From this issue on the GitHub repo of WP-API, I think the developers are still working on the arguments style (see this comment). It’s a very informative discussion so be sure to check that out.

Improving The Security Of Meta Query When Working With WP-API v2.0

If you’ve kept an eye on WP-API for a while, you must notice that every time someone asks about the “meta query”, she/he will be reminded that “there might be some security risks” if exposing meta values to the WP-API.

I never store any confidential or sensitive data in post meta so I really hope things can be easier. But since WordPress and WP-API don’t work that way, let’s see what else we can do.

Limiting The Meta Keys Can Be Queried

No matter which filter you use to add the meta_key and meta_value to the $valid_vars (you can use query_vars, rest_private_query_vars and rest_query_vars), you basically allow all meta fields can be queried. If it’s too risky to you, try to limit the meta_key to only allowed fields with rest_post_query filter.


I hope you enjoy this post and would love to spend more time to know WP-API v2.0 better. If you encounter any question when following the steps from this tutorial, just shoot me an email: yoren [at] 1fix.io, or ping me on Twitter (@1fixdotio), and comments are much welcome. Talk soon!

144 responses

  1. really good post, thanks for sharing your experience.

    Looks to me that there’s still quite some work ahead for the API to be production ready. Nevertheless, I think it’s going to be a huge step forward for WP, really looking forward to have a stable release.

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi Luca, Yep the WP-API is going to be a huge thing to all WordPresser. I’m glad that we’re in good hands. Looking forward to the core integration too!

  2. Micah Mills Avatar
    Micah Mills

    Just in case anyone comes across this later as of WP-API V2 beta 4 the use of meta_keys and meta_values (and any other request variables) is done with filter now. So you would need to change the request URL from
    wp-json/wp/v2/posts?meta_key=MY-KEY&meta_value=MY-VALUE&ignore_sticky_posts=1

    to
    wp-json/wp/v2/posts?filter[meta_key]=MY-KEY&filter[meta_value]=MY-VALUE&filter[ignore_sticky_posts]=1

    As with a lot of things in V2 of the API this isn’t documented but I came across it after hours of searching in a GitHub Pull Request. https://github.com/WP-API/WP-API/pull/1420

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hey Micah, Thank you so much for this update. I’ll update the post accordingly as soon as I can.

  3. hai YOREN CHANG,
    i am trying to display tags associated with specific post
    for example, i have post with name ” hello world” and attached tag to this post like “test”,”wp” .
    now i am trying to display “hellowolrd” post along with its tags (‘test’,’wp’).
    I look into json of that post but it does not contain tag lists.
    can you suggest how to retrieve tag information of post.
    thank you

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi, Nithin, just do so by accessing the route like http://[YOUR-URL]/wp-json/wp/v2/terms/tag?post=[YOUR-POST-ID], you’ll get the tags collection for the post.

  4. Hi Yoren,

    possible that you have a type here in your code? I see a double “s” in $args…

    unset( $argss[‘meta_key’] );

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      hey Luca, thanks and I just fixed that.

  5. Hi,

    Am I right in thinking that you can do this to get around the “post_status” filter without using oAuth ?

    I want to filter posts by ‘post_status’ => ‘future’ , as I am querying future events CPT. But I need to use an oAuth to use this, hoping a custom end point will get around this problem ?

    Thanks,
    Tom

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi Tom, adding post_status to $valid_vars with rest_query_vars filter should do the trick. Let me know if it works.

  6. Thanks Yoren for the writeup. Do you know how to list all the default taxonomy terms and the custom taxonomy terms? I’ve tried the below route but it returns “rest_no_route”. This is how it was done in WP-REST-API version 1 but isn’t working in version 2.

    /wp-json/wp/v2/taxonomies/category/terms

    Thanks

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi Loc,

      Have you tried:
      /wp-json/wp/v2/terms/{taxonomy}

      Like:
      /wp-json/wp/v2/terms/category or wp-json/wp/v2/terms/tag/

      It should work! (fyi: https://www.dropbox.com/s/yh8gq8l5qadmbm0/Screenshot%202015-09-21%2018.56.54.png?dl=0)

      1. You’re a genius, that solved my problem! Thank you very much and I’m so glad i found your blog. All these times, I thought terms are sub items of taxonomy and that was my mistake to send my request to /wp-json/wp/v2/taxonomy/category/terms. Perhaps things changed in v2.

        1. Yoren Chang Avatar
          Yoren Chang

          Ha! I think you’re right about “terms” as “sub items” of a taxonomy, so the structure of the terms route in version 1 makes much more sense to me too.

          When you have doubt about which route to use in WP API v2, just visit wp-json/wp/v2/ and you’ll get a full list of routes. That helps a lot.

  7. Thomas Blomberg Hansen Avatar
    Thomas Blomberg Hansen

    Hi, you already helped me a lot! Thanks!

    I have a problem with my custom taxonomy.
    I register it like this:
    $municipality_args = array(
    ‘labels’ => $municipality_labels,
    ‘hierarchical’ => true,
    ‘public’ => true,
    ‘show_ui’ => true,
    ‘show_admin_column’ => true,
    ‘show_in_nav_menus’ => false,
    ‘show_tagcloud’ => false,
    );
    register_taxonomy( ‘municipality’, array( ‘ilcms’ ), $municipality_args );

    When I visit “/wp-json/wp/v2/taxonomies/municipality” I get:
    code: “rest_forbidden”,
    message: “You don’t have permission to do this.”,
    data: {
    status: 403
    }

    Any ideas?
    I can’t find any solution to allow it in the rest api.

    1. Thomas Blomberg Hansen Avatar
      Thomas Blomberg Hansen

      /wp-json/wp/v2/taxonomies doesn’t list my custom taxonomies, only “category” and “post_tag”.

      1. Yoren Chang Avatar
        Yoren Chang

        Hey, Thomas,

        Try to add `’show_in_rest’ => true` to the `$municipality_args` array. Now the WP API required `show_in_rest` if you want to expose a custom post type or taxonomy to the JSON response.

    2. Thomas Blomberg Hansen Avatar
      Thomas Blomberg Hansen

      I helped asking you 🙂

      Like custom post types, you should add :
      ‘show_in_rest’ => true,

      Like this:
      $municipality_args = array(
      ‘labels’ => $municipality_labels,
      ‘hierarchical’ => true,
      ‘public’ => true,
      ‘show_in_rest’ => true,
      ‘show_ui’ => true,
      ‘show_admin_column’ => true,
      ‘show_in_nav_menus’ => false,
      ‘show_tagcloud’ => false,
      );

    3. Thomas Blomberg Hansen Avatar
      Thomas Blomberg Hansen

      And /wp-json/wp/v2/terms/municipality lists all municipalities

      1. Yoren Chang Avatar
        Yoren Chang

        Ha! Glad you figured that out!

  8. Ashish Agarwal Avatar
    Ashish Agarwal

    hi , i am using v2 api on my website ..

    But i need two filter together by category + date.. i have used in v1 version but in v2 it is not working..
    can you tell me how it will use in v2

    Thank you

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi, Ashish,

      I haven’t tested but parameters work in WP_Query class should work for posts route in WP API v2.

      So I guess you can try:

      wp-json/wp/v2/posts?filter[category_name]=uncategorized&filter[year]=2015&filter[monthnum]=5&filter[day]=29

    2. Ashish Agarwal Avatar
      Ashish Agarwal

      Thank you for reply ,

      it gives me data of a particular date ..

      i need to get all data from that date .

      1. Yoren Chang Avatar
        Yoren Chang

        Just check the Codex for the usage of `date` parameter:

        https://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_Query#Date_Parameters

      2. Chris Haff Avatar
        Chris Haff

        Did you get anywhere with this? I have the same issue. The query I want is:

        date_query’ => array(
        array(
        ‘after’ => ‘2016-01-08 23:59:59’,
        ),
        ),

        put passing in an object is confounding me.

        1. Chris Haff Avatar
          Chris Haff

          I’ve worked out the following. If there’s a better/easier way I’d love to hear about it.

          /* Add a fields to be allowed to searched via API */
          function mt_allow_meta_query( $valid_vars ) {
          $valid_vars = array_merge( $valid_vars, array( ‘date_query’ ) ); // ‘meta_key’, ‘meta_value’,
          return $valid_vars;
          }
          add_filter( ‘rest_query_vars’, ‘mt_allow_meta_query’ );

          /* Add custom search for above field to REST API */
          function mt_rest_query_support($args, $request) {
          if( $args[‘modified_since’] !== ” ) {
          $args[‘date_query’] = array( ‘column’ => ‘post_modified_gmt’, ‘after’ => $args[‘modified_since’] );
          unset( $args[‘modified_since’] );
          }
          return $args;
          }
          add_filter( ‘rest_post_query’, ‘mt_rest_query_support’, 10, 2 );

          1. Yoren Chang Avatar
            Yoren Chang

            Hey Chris, I was going to write a snippet like this, glad you’ve done it! Just it would be much secure if we sanitize the $args[‘modified_since’] with sanitize_text_field().

  9. Hi Yoren,
    My question is a bit off topic but your blog seems to be most responsive and I’ve gotten my last question answered here. That’s why I’m back; anyhow:

    On WordPress XML-RPC api, there is a method to get the site options called wp.getOptions. This method is quite important as it provides relevant meta data regarding the wordpress site. I do not see this being available on the /wp-json/wp/v2/ so I wonder if I have to manually add this endpoint my self. I think it’s a fairly useful endpoint to have built-in with WP REST API.

    Some of the information returned from wp.getOptions includes data such as: admin_url, blog_tagline, blog_title, blog_url, date_format, …

    Thanks.
    Loc

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi, Loc,

      It’s a very excellent question! To obtain some basic options, you can visit the site index like:

      [URL]/wp-json/

      There are only 3 options can be access by default: name, description and url. So if you’d like to add more, just add filter to “rest_index” like this:

      
      function my_rest_index( $response ) {
        $response->data['admin_email'] = get_option( 'admin_email' );
        
        return $response;
      }
      add_filter( 'rest_index', 'my_rest_index' );
      
      

      Let me know if that works for you. Cheers.

      1. This works perfectly Yoren. Thanks again.

  10. I hope you don’t mind me asking another question about REST API. It appears that date filtering is not enabled by default with WordPress Core. Therefore, the following would not work:
    /wp-json/wp/v2/posts?filter[before]=2015-09-10T11:14:10
    /wp-json/wp/v2/posts?filter[after]=2015-09-10T11:14:10

    I’ve seen others recommended adding the following code to the active theme’s functions.php file should do the trick, so I tried but haven’t seen the light of it.

    EITHER THESE CODE:
    function add_additional_meta_json_query_vars($filters){
    array_push($filters, ‘date_query’);
    return $filters;
    }
    add_filter(‘json_query_vars’, ‘add_additional_meta_json_query_vars’);

    OR THISE CODE:
    add_filter( ‘json_query_vars’, function ( $vars ) {
    $vars[] = ‘date_query’;
    return $vars;
    } );

    Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hey, Loc,

      Glad you came back! I’m not sure if you still use WP API v1, but I’m sure if you’re at WP API v2, the following code should make the `date_query` work very well:

      function my_rest_query_vars( $valid_vars ) {
      
      	$valid_vars = array_merge( $valid_vars, array( 'date_query' ) );
      	return $valid_vars;
      }
      add_filter( 'rest_query_vars', 'my_rest_query_vars' );
      

      Cheers!

      1. Once again, thanks Yoren. I’m using version v2 and this function works well.

  11. hello dear.
    i have some question, i hope u can help me.
    1- in my test WordPress site, i have about 12 post, when i call:
    wp-json/wp/v2/posts
    the result is an array which just have 10 member.
    how can i get all of my post in a call?

    2- Is there any default way to call all post and in the result doesn’t contain the content part and only contain excerpt part.
    i think it’s may have a bad effect on my app, because of the size of the content part, may have.

    3- is there a way to call a specif number of post? like 10 of them per call or page by page.

    4- is there any way to call posts by they tag name? i can find the category’s, and in the category there is a link which is refer to the all posts whit that category; but link show the post in the site(HTML).

    and i just forget my other questions :)))).
    so, any way, your post help me, special thanks for your post.
    PS: sorry for my amazing English. 😀

  12. Yoren Chang Avatar
    Yoren Chang

    Hi, Miladna,

    Regarding question 1 and 3, please refer to https://1fix.io/blog/2015/09/29/wp-api-v2-angularjs-theme/ for the answers.

    And you can learn how to manipulate the response fields of the WP API from this post: https://1fix.io/blog/2015/06/26/adding-fields-wp-rest-api/

    Lastly, calling posts by tag with route wp-json/wp/v2/posts/?tag=love.

    Cheers!

  13. Hi, i need help with the api,

    I am listing all the taxonomies correct, and i want to get the post inside

    example:

    Taxonomy
    – post
    – post
    Taxonomy
    – post
    – post

    I am doing in angular js but when i list the posts inside i get all of then instead of the ones with the taxonomies.

    Can you give an example that works.

    Thanks..

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi, Willan, Can’t you get the posts with route like wp-json/wp/v2/posts/?taxonomy=job-type&term=manager?

      Your CPT needs to be registered with 'show_in_rest' => true in the arguments, or the WP API will return errors.

      Need more information (ex: your code) so I can give some help. Talk soon.

      1. Hi Yoren,

        I have already insert the show_in_rest in the post type and taxonomy.

        The problem is getting the data right

        Here is the code http://pastebin.com/cXZTmgdZ

        Thanks..

        1. Yoren Chang Avatar
          Yoren Chang

          Hi Willan,

          Glad you figured that out and thanks for the sharing!

  14. Hi Yoren,

    I almost got it right, the problem is It lists the posts inside the taxonomy, but it shows all the posts, intead of showing only the posts in the taxonomy.

    Any idea how to do it?

    Thanks..

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Oh I’m sorry that misunderstood your comment.

      Just checked the code again. I think you did it wrong by getting the posts “outside” the terms request? And basically in such route:

      http://104.236.99.94/wp-json/wp/v2/atividade?filter[terms]=data&filter[meta_key]=horario_inicio&filter[order]=ASC&filter[orderby]=meta_value_num

      The “data” (for filter by terms) is “undefined” so the posts query won’t work.

      1. I pasted the worng url, this is the one:

        http://104.236.99.94/wp-json/wp/v2/atividade?filter%5Bmeta_key%5D=horario_inicio&filter%5Border%5D=ASC&filter%5Borderby%5D=meta_value_num

        But it still does not work, do you have any idea how i can get it working? can you give an example?

        Thanks

        1. Yoren Chang Avatar
          Yoren Chang

          I think I misunderstood your code again! That the “data” is actually a tax name but not a variable…

          I’m sorry that I’m kind of busy at this moment and can’t be very helpful with the info you provided.

        2. Yoren Chang Avatar
          Yoren Chang

          Hi I just gave it a last try and back to your first question, if you’re trying to get the posts from a certain term, in your case, the route should be:

          http://104.236.99.94/wp-json/wp/v2/atividade?filter[data]=25-de-novembro

          1. Yoren,

            Still not it , i need to list all the terms with the posts that be belongs to each term.

            Like on this example https://gist.github.com/jaredkc/6191133

            I know that you busy, but thanks anyway.

  15. How do I query for the category of my current post:
    ‘/posts?filter[category_name]= ( get the category_name/s by the current post ID)’

    Thank you!

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi, Adolf,

      You can access the category for the current post with route like:

      wp/v2/posts/POST-ID/terms/category

      You’ll get an array of category objects. Cheers!

      1. Its a 404. Im still trying to figure how to fetch the posts. Thank you though.

  16. I think this one is working: /terms/category?filter[s]=name&

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hey Adolf, from your original question I though you were fetching “terms for a certain post”. Now from your answer, it’s for fetching “posts from a certain term”. So I guess both answers are right 😉

  17. Well, my answer actually retrieves specific terms —> category_name of a given post id, say i got an id of 5433, it was able to retrieve names of category of that post like “event or people”. Anyway Yoren, i have one more question.
    From this: “$http.jsonp( url ).then(function(response) {”
    -How do i get the id of a post without doing this: “angular.forEach( response.data, function( value, key )”
    value.id gets the id that i need, but I want something like: response.data.id or response.id….Thank you!

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hey Adolf,

      Can you show me a bit more of your code so I can see the context of what you’re trying to do? Thanks!

      1. $rootScope.filterPosts = function(url) {
        $http.jsonp( url ).then(function(response) {

        angular.forEach( response.data, function( value, key ) {
        $rootScope.itemID = value.id;
        });
        // I just want something like $rootScope.itemID = response.data
        //so no agular.forEach if possible
        }, function(response) {
        $log.error(response);
        });

        }

        1. Oh I think i got it. its response.data[0].id…Thank you Yoren. Im a newbie in angular.haha

          1. Yoren Chang Avatar
            Yoren Chang

            hey Adolf, Cool that you figured it out. Feel free to come back any time!

  18. Hey, I use version 2.0beta8 of WP REST API. While doing a GET /wp-json/wp/v2/posts query, I don’t seem to be able to get the “terms” child for the posts displayed. These are the only fields displayed:
    id, date, date_gmt, guid, modified, modified_gmt, slug, type, link, title, content, excerpt, author, featured_image, comment_status, ping_status, sticky, format, _links
    I have five categories and all my posts are of the type “post”.
    Thus, additionally, while trying to create a post, I am unable to post to a category of my choice, any new post I create via wp-api gets the default category designation I’ve set from wordpress dashboard.
    Hope you can help.

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi, S0ft,

      To get the terms of a certain post, you could use route like: http://demo.wp-api.org/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/126/terms/category to get the terms for that post in a certain taxonomy. The terms data won’t be come with the single post route.

      As to the second issue, I can’t be very helpful since I have no idea how you publish the post via WP API.

      1. Thanks for the response.
        I figured it out.

  19. Hi Yoren, Im back, I just wanna ask if how do I remove “Read More” from post.excerpt.rendered. Thank you! Cheers!

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hey Adolf,

      You may find your answer from this thread of comments: https://1fix.io/blog/2014/11/13/angularjs-wordpress-theme-ngbindhtml/#comment-8893.

      1. Thanks as always Yoren,

        The solution was pretty easy, i just hide the class of read more using css. I was thinking way too technical. haha

        1. Yoren Chang Avatar
          Yoren Chang

          Hey Adolf, That’s definitely a much easier solution. I’m writing a post on the “trouble more tag” in WP API, thanks for providing me a not so techy approach!

  20. Is it possible to get a return of a category name within the /v2/posts/ json return? I just want a list of categories that becomes available, then once they click on the category it returns a list of posts within that category.

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi Mark, you’ll need to alter the API response, please refer to this post for more info: https://1fix.io/blog/2015/06/26/adding-fields-wp-rest-api/.

  21. Tan Nguyen Avatar
    Tan Nguyen

    Hi Yoren Chang
    Really good post, thanks for sharing your experience.

    I has a problem. I’m using RECT API v2, I want to get the list taxonomy [Playground,Tutorial] of post type [Home].

    https://goo.gl/photos/7dDSWSwC9WmJyziR6

    Hope you can help.

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi Tan, first make sure you’ve set show_in_rest to true when registering your custom post types and taxonomies. Then you can try route like:

      wp-json/wp/v2/home?filter[category_name]=playground

      Or if the category is a custom one, just replace category_name with the taxonomy slug.

      1. Tan Nguyen Avatar
        Tan Nguyen

        Hi Yoren Chang, Thank you for reply .

        I did it 😀

        1. Yoren Chang Avatar
          Yoren Chang

          Great! Glad you figured it out!

  22. Hello Yoren,

    I’m back! So the way I get comments from an article is by querying “http://yourbohobible.com/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=post_id?&_jsonp=JSON_CALLBACK” using $http.jsonp. I just want to ask if how do I post comment/s into posts. I know I need to use $http.post, but how about the URL to where I am going to put the comment/s? Thanks in advance.

  23. Yoren Chang Avatar
    Yoren Chang

    Hey Adolf,

    Good to see you again!

    The route to create a comment is http://demo.wp-api.org/wp-json/wp/v2/comments, and you’ll need to pass a few arguments to it, just check the official documentation here: http://v2.wp-api.org/reference/comments/, and search for “Create a Comment”.

    I haven’t really dealt with comments so if it dosen’t work, feel free to correct me. Thanks!

  24. […] Getting Posts By Taxonomy Or Meta Field With WP-API v2.0 […]

  25. How to get all posts of a given date , this is needed for news paper , i want to get todays news to android app via json

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi, Krishna,

      Just try this thread and see if it works: https://1fix.io/blog/2015/07/20/query-vars-wp-api/#comment-7945

  26. Hi Yoren,

    Great information here, helped me a lot learning v2. Do you know if it is possible to get from multiple post types?

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi, Dan,

      There seems no default route for this, we should create our own custom route for it.

  27. Hi there. Thanks for this post.

    Do you know how to query posts by nested objects in acf?

    I can get post by meta key value at one level, e.g:

    ‘acf’ {
    ‘key-1’: ‘value-1’
    }

    ?filter[meta_key]=key-1&filter[meta_value]=value-1

    But I would like to query by a key in an array from acf, so getting key/value-2:

    ‘acf’ {
    ‘key-1’: ‘value-1’,
    ‘nested’: [{
    ‘key-2’: ‘value-2’
    }]
    }

    Have any idea how to achieve this?

    Thanks!

    D

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi, this should be similar like how we use date_query: https://1fix.io/blog/2015/07/20/query-vars-wp-api/#comment-10685.

      1. Thanks Yoren.
        I’ve been playing around and can’t seem to figure it out. Swap date_query with meta_key/value?
        Do you have a rough example?

        Cheers!

        1. Yoren Chang Avatar
          Yoren Chang

          Hello, for multiple meta key/value pairs we should use “meta_query” instead. Check the Codex: https://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_Query and search for “meta_query”.

  28. HI Yoren,

    I am using v2. how to get specific category with it’s sub categories ?

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi John, you can try this https://1fix.io/blog/2015/12/18/single-request-category-posts/, just replace the posts with the sub categories.

  29. thanks . one more question .
    how to get 4 posts with their featured image .

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi, John, This post might help you with it: https://1fix.io/blog/2015/09/29/wp-api-v2-angularjs-theme/.

  30. Lamari Aderrahim Avatar
    Lamari Aderrahim

    thank you for sharing this post.
    can you help me please how to get like this query with wp rest api v2?

    http://i.imgur.com/YMl7JaO.png

    $posts = get_posts(array(
    ‘numberposts’ => -1,
    ‘post_type’ => ‘post’,
    ‘meta_query’ => array(
    ‘relation’ => ‘AND’,
    array(
    ‘key’ => ‘color’,
    ‘value’ => array(‘red’, ‘orange’),
    ‘compare’ => ‘IN’,
    ),
    array(
    ‘key’ => ‘featured’,
    ‘value’ => ‘1’,
    ‘compare’ => ‘=’,
    ),
    ),
    ));

    thank you.

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hey, I’ll manage to write a new post on it this week. Talk soon.

    2. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hey Lamari, I was writing this very post but I found MailChimp have explained it very well: https://apidocs.mailchimp.com/gettingstarted/serialized_http_arrays.php.

      Just check it out!

  31. Andres Z Avatar
    Andres Z

    Very nice post ! Thank you very much 🙂

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      You are very welcome! 😀

  32. Hi Yoren! I love your site, I’ve been checking the resources and examples. Coming along nicely but running into issues with multiple value meta queries.

    I read through the mail chimp api link you provided but still struggling to get my query to work for multiple parameters.

    My functions.php file is including the meta_query param in the valid_vars

    I am querying advanced custom fields values and have made them available to query with the acf to rest plugin.

    I would like the values

    “article_type” => “4” and “show_on_home_page” => “yes”

    I have it working with just one value like so

    ?filter[meta_query][]=filter[meta_key]=show_on_home_page&filter[meta_value]=yes

    Do I need to include the compare and type values?

    How would I do it with both the show_on_home_page and article_type keys?

    Thank you so so much for your blog, I love to read through your tutorials and they are so helpful!

    Thank you for helping me if you can!

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi Eric,

      Can you see if ?filter[meta_query][0][key]=article_type&filter[meta_query][0][value]=4&filter[meta_query][1][key]=show_on_home_page&filter[meta_query][1][value]=yes works?

      1. YOREN!!! Thank you!!! I wasn’t using [meta_query] before each key and value!!!!

        Honestly I tried everything, (except this haha) Thank you it makes total sense!

        Once again, thank you for writing, sharing, responding and creating amazing content. You inspire me!

        – Eric

        1. Yoren Chang Avatar
          Yoren Chang

          Glad to know I made your day!

  33. I have custom post type in wp api. These CP’s belong to bbpress ( forum, topic, reply). I want to create topic under a forum. Right now i am able to create topic but not associate with forum. How to enable particular field for creation or updation. e.g parent_id is what it is for attaching topic to forum. It can also be post_parent. Tried both but didnt work out.

    Can you please help ?

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi Pava, I don’t really understand what’s not working. Can you update the parent_id or post_parent successfully?

  34. Hi, I have an issue with media_query on wp rest api V2

    I want filter posts with custom field named start_date after a spicific date.
    I think its possible with media_query but dont know how!

    /wp-json/wp/v2/project/?filter[meta_query][key]=start_date&filter[meta_query][key2]=DATE_ENTER_BY USER_ON_FRONTEND&filter[meta_query][compare]=”<="

    is that even possible?

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi Emin, I assume you were talking about meta_query instead of media_uqery. Would this comment help in your case: https://1fix.io/blog/2015/07/20/query-vars-wp-api/#comment-10685 ?

  35. sankar Avatar
    sankar

    Hi yoren,

    I need to get post meta fields(table fields) based on particular property id and as well list of all properties are published with this api. I’ve added custom end point for getting this properties based on the property post type http://192.168.0.107:8383/wp-json/wp/v2/properties/. Here i want to get property_price & property_address details with metadata table.

    Kindly please help how to get the these fields with custom api responses.

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi Sankar, the address is in your local environment so unfortunately I can’t see what you’re trying to do.

      1. sankar Avatar
        sankar

        Hi yoren,

        I got the solution above query asked. But i have another solution here. For example while adding the real estate property we type of categories like apartment,house,office and these data’s are stored in terms table. Which type of json api method i need to get these list of all categories.

  36. Hi Yoren! Are there any ways to get products which have meta_price greater than 50 and less than 200?

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi Jane, can you test if this works:

      ?filter[meta_query][0][key]= meta_price&filter[meta_query][0][value][0]=50&filter[meta_query][0][value][1]=200&filter[meta_query][0][compare]=between

      1. sankar Avatar
        sankar

        Hi Yoren,

        I’ve checked the above solution it not works.Above same scenario having with my project also but not getting the results as between query.

        1. Yoren Chang Avatar
          Yoren Chang

          Hello, Sankar, if that’s the case I can’t be helpful at this moment. Wish you best luck on it!

        2. Hi,
          Probably a bit late but for those who have the same problem I found what was missing in this request. You just have to add &filter[meta_query][0][type]=numeric to the url because by default the values are considered as chars. So the full request would be:

          ?filter[meta_query][0][key]= meta_price&filter[meta_query][0][value][0]=50&filter[meta_query][0][value][1]=200&filter[meta_query][0][type]=numeric&filter[meta_query][0][compare]=between

          1. Yoren Chang Avatar
            Yoren Chang

            Wow, this is great! Thanks a lot Jason!

  37. sankar Avatar
    sankar

    Hi Yoren,

    I’m using this wp rest api with my website for filter custom meta fields called price. So here need to filter the data used price range for this examples:

    `http://192.168.0.101:8383/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/?filter[meta_query][0][key]=price&filter[meta_query][0][value][0]=50&filter[meta_query][0][value][1]=200&filter[meta_query][0][compare]=between`

    `http://192.168.0.101:8383/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/?filter[meta_key]=price&filter[meta_value][0]=50&filter[meta_value][1]=200&filter[meta_compare]=between`

    Above both examples not getting exact match results to me. And i’ve added & using the custom `rest_query_vars` process only. And also its working with greater than or less than custom fields below example for reference.

    `http://192.168.0.101:8383/wp-json/wp/v2/properties/?lang=en&filter[meta_query][0][key]=beds&filter[meta_query][0][value]=3&filter[meta_query][0][compare]=>=`

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hi Sankar, there’s possibility that WP API doesn’t fully support complex meta_query for now. So we might need to hack around it by creating custom end points. I’ll reply to your email later.

    2. Hi Sankar,
      Your first url is good, you just need to add &filter[meta_query][0][type]=numeric because by default the values are considered as strings or chars

  38. Justin Avatar

    Hi YOREN !

    Great thread.

    It’s late an I’m sure your busy – quick question.

    My IONIC app developer is not receiving the json REST API call for the taxonomy and terms in the assigned wordpress taxonomy order.

    /wp-json/wp/v2/{taxonomy}

    the call is returning the data by ID asc order.

    How do i get the taxonomy and terms in a hierarchy structure parent child in the correct order

    thanks

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      hello Justin,

      Sorry for the late reply. You can modify the order of the terms by using “rest_{taxonomy}_query” filter. But if you need to set them in a hierarchical order, the best solution might be to create a custom endpoint.

  39. Hello, Really great site and article.
    I’m wondering if you can give me some hints about getting custom post types by category. Currently, I’m doing this:
    /wp-json/wp/v2/video?filter[category]={category}&per_page=30

    …to get the videos I’ve given a certain category. But instead it always returns the 30 most recent videos.
    I’ve added the required fields in the custom post type declaration to have the post type show up in REST.
    Any help would be greatly appreciated.
    Thanks

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hey Zach, as I’ve described in this post, you should category_name instead of category to filter this default tax.

  40. santosh Avatar
    santosh

    Hi,
    how to filter the custom post type using Between or >=
    Ex:
    custom_start_date = “in milliseconds”,
    custom_end_date = “in milliseconds”

    found int doc :The ‘type’ DATE works with the ‘compare’ value BETWEEN only if the date is stored at the format YYYY-MM-DD and tested with this format.
    can please help and very new to php and wordpress

  41. Hi Yoren,

    Need to filter the data’s using query vars with combination of two taxonomies. I’ve done following this url http://192.168.0.11:8383/wp-json/wp/v2/properties/?lang=en&filter%5Btaxonomy%5D=property_category&filter%5Bterm%5D=houses&filter%5Btaxonomy%5D=property_type_category&filter%5Bterm%5D=for-sale

    Expected Result : Need to get results for AND condition based
    Actual Result : Getting the results OR condition based.

    May I know how to get combination of two taxonomies based.

  42. Yoren Chang Avatar
    Yoren Chang

    Hi Sankar,

    Have you tried the “tax_query” parameter approach?

    It should work like meta_query (https://1fix.io/blog/2015/07/20/query-vars-wp-api/#comment-15893) and you can use “tax_query[relation]=AND” to suit your needs.

  43. Is there a way to do a “negative” filter? For example, I want to filter down to posts that do NOT have a certain category.

  44. Hi Yoren,

    thank you for your useful post.
    I carefully read it but somethings escapes me.

    I’m trying to filter the pages of my wp site by an acf field value.
    The name of my acf field is “on_app” and his value is a boolean “true/false”.

    I added the hook You show to my function.php and then I try to filter the pages with:

    http://nudowordpress.it.95-110-203-101.intothenet.it/wp-json/wp/v2/pages?filter%5Bmeta_key%5D=on_app&filter%5Bmeta_value%5D=true

    but the response I receive is only []

    Where am I wrong?

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hey Filippo, can you use 1 / 2 to represent true / false? All value in URL param will be treated as strings so that may be why it doesn’t work.

  45. Hi Yoren,

    I understood where I was wrong:
    The correct url parameters to filter post/pages by the boolean value of an ACF field is:

    wp-json/wp/v2/pages?filter[meta_key]=MY_KEY&filter[meta_value]=1

    in my case:
    http://nudowordpress.it.95-110-203-101.intothenet.it/wp-json/wp/v2/pages?filter%5Bmeta_key%5D=on_app&filter%5Bmeta_value%5D=1

    My error was to use true/false for the value.

    Thank You for your post.

    Filippo

  46. ah ah ah!
    I read only now your answer.
    Thank You Yoren.

  47. Hi,

    Is this disabled on the REST API of wordpress 4.7?

    Upgraded wordpress core and deactivated wp rest api v2 plugin and the meta_key filters do not work.

    1. Hi Onis,

      I was going to post your same question.
      After a wp update the filters [term] and [taxonomy] seem no longer work.

      for example, before the wp update I used in postman this query:

      http://mycapri.it/wp-json/wp/v2/portfolio/?filter%5Btaxonomy%5D=portfolio_category&filter%5Bterm%5D=Ristoranti

      after the wp update, the same query doesn’t apply the filters.

      Any idea?

      Filippo

      1. Yoren Chang Avatar
        Yoren Chang

        Yup the filter parameter was removed from WP API. Can you check if this new plugin can bring it back? https://github.com/wp-api/rest-filter

        1. Hi Yoren Chang
          Just tested it and it doesnt seem to work.
          Any updates on that? Does it work for anybody?
          Thank you very much!

    2. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Yup the filter parameter was removed from WP API. Can you check if this new plugin can bring it back? https://github.com/wp-api/rest-filter

  48. This post is very old and doubt it’s still being monitored, but can one query custom post types by category? Something like

    wp-json/wp/v2/CPT/?filter[category_name]=CPT_CATEGORY

    ?

    I’ve found information about using a custom taxonomy with custom post types but would like to use the built in ones. Thanks for your advice.

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      In theory you can definitely do that as long as you register your CPT & custom post taxonomy with REST API support. Just I didn’t test about it so if I’m wrong, please let me know. 😉

  49. Jacob Avatar

    Is there a way to query posts by meta value now that `filter` has been removed from the API, without adding a plugin?

  50. […] fancier things with queries here, you’ll need to install this plugin and go the filter route. This post has many good examples but they will NOT work with the current vanilla […]

  51. Hi Yoren,

    I try search http://site.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts?search=keyword. What can i add to get ‘future’ posts? Can you write examples?

    Thanks!

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Hey Tagdd, just try to set `post_status` to `future`.

  52. Hi
    YOREN ,
    my site consists of taxonomies
    -videos
    -articles
    -fun activities
    so by using wp rest api how can i get specific taxonomy info .
    -Thanks in advance.

  53. […] Getting Posts By Taxonomy Or Meta Field With WP-API v2.0 […]

  54. Hi there so how would you do this: wp-json/wp/v2/posts/?filter[taxonomy]=job-type&filter[term]=manager with the new api?

    Any help would be most appreciated.

    Dan

    1. Yoren Chang Avatar
      Yoren Chang

      Have you tried a plugin like this: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-rest-filter/ ? It was intended to bring back the filter param.

  55. TagDD Avatar

    Hello YOREN CHANG,

    I have future posts on blog! I try send request (http://site.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts?search=KEYWORD) and get the answer ‘[]’!

    How can I fix this?

    Thanks!

  56. Excellent website. Plenty of useful information here. I am sending it to some friends ans
    also sharing in delicious. And of course, thank you on your sweat!

  57. Hi,
    i have a post url with category and date, ho can i get in to json format.
    URL: https://wordpress.com/blog/2020/12/03/international-day-of-disabled-persons/

  58. […] First, you must allow your custom field be queried from the REST API. Let’s start simple with an example from 1fix.io: […]

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