Thread

Is there any way one can search a custom field name, if the field name itself is a variable?

I’m dealing with two channels: MasterTable and Sections

MasterTable has 20+ custom fields with DropDown formatting.
Sections has a Matrix field with 2+ rows per entry and a custom field called CFShort (both text)

In a perfect world, I need my page to:

- randomly select one of the Section entries (returning CFShort)
- randomly select one of the rows from the Matrix field within this Section entry (returning Option)
- randomly select three entries from MasterTable with a custom field short_name that matches CFShort and has a result that matches Option

Now I know this has to be possible, and I get close by using search:field_name BUT only by hardcoding the field_name in there…I need it to be dynamically selected from the previous channel query. I can easily grab the first two items above—it’s the third that causes me grief.

Ultimately I would like this to work:

{exp:channel:entries channel="MasterTable" orderby="random" limit="3" search:{CFShort}="{Option}"}

But the whole parse order prevents it from working…

I’m close, but I just need to work out the logic…any takers?

Hi J. Hull,

You can probable do this with an embed and some embed variables:

{embed='embeds/master-table' my_cf-short='{CFShort}' my_option='{Option}'}

Then… your master-table template
{exp:channel:entries channel="MasterTable" orderby="random" limit="3" search:{embed:my_cf-short}="{embed:my_option}"}

What do you think?

Cheers,

Yes, that would work great! Though I was trying to add another embed to my template.

I’ve been trying the whole DRY/Stash technique and already had an embed in there.

Your solution works great, but I also managed to get it to work with some Stash goodness. The link for anyone who is interested is here: Search Custom Field with Stash

Thanks!

Hi J. Hull,

Excellent! Thanks for the resource!

If you need anything else, just let us know.

Cheers,