Wordpress search order results - wordpress

Question

Don't know what I'm doing wrong here.
I have a working search function for a property search which I can use to search custom fields. I want to order the search results by price asc and desc using a dropdown filter at the top of the search results.
I have a search.php into which I have placed this code:
<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/search-query.php'); ?>
<form name="formorder" method="post">
<select name="resultsorder" onChange="formorder.submit();">
<option>Order Results By</option>
<option value="Price High-Low" <?php echo ($resultsorder == 'Price High-Low')? 'selected="selected"':''; ?>>Price Low-High</option>
<option value="Price High-Low" <?php echo ($resultsorder == 'Price High-Low')? 'selected="selected"':''; ?>>Price High-Low</option>
<option value="a-z" <?php echo ($resultsorder == 'a-z')? 'selected="selected"':''; ?>>a-z</option>
</select>
</form>
And I have a search-query.php containing this code:
<?php if($resultsorder) {
//get value from order dropdown on search results page
$resultsorder = $resultsorder;
} else {
$resultsorder = get_option('wp_searchorder');}
switch ($resultsorder) {
case "Price High-Low":
$metakey = 'price';
$order = 'DESC';
$orderby = 'meta_value_num';
break;
case "Price Low-High":
$metakey = 'price';
$order = 'ASC';
$orderby = 'meta_value_num';
break;
case "a-z":
$metakey = 'address';
$order = 'ASC';
$orderby = 'meta_value';
break;}
if (!empty($_ids) && !$alllistings) {
$wpq = array ('post_type' => 'listing', 'meta_key' => $metakey, 'orderby' => $orderby, 'order' => $order, 'post__in' => $_ids, 'post_status' => 'publish', 'paged' => $paged, 'posts_per_page' => 9999 );
} elseif (empty($_ids) && !$alllistings) {
// $_ids array is empty because search got no results
// $_ids array will be empty if page is an "All Listings" page. Don't run this code if is All Listings because All Listings will show all listings. This code will display "no results found"
$wpq = array ('post_type' =>'listing', 'meta_key' => $metakey, 'orderby' => $orderby, 'order' => $order, 'post__in' => array('0'),'post_status' => 'publish', 'paged' => $paged, 'posts_per_page' => 9999);
} elseif ($alllistings) {
// This is an All Listings page, so show all results
$wpq = array ('post_type' =>'listing', 'paged' => $paged, 'meta_key' => $metakey, 'orderby' => $orderby, 'order' => $order, 'post_status' => 'publish', 'posts_per_page' => 9999);
}
$listing = new WP_Query($wpq);?>
Not sure what I'm doing wrong.

Answer 1

You'll have to give us a bit more detail. Are you getting an error? If not, what are you expecting to see, and what are you actually seeing?
One possible problem is you're passing "Price High-Low" even if they select "Price Low-High". This line:
<option value="Price High-Low" <?php echo ($resultsorder == 'Price High-Low')? 'selected="selected"':''; ?>>Price Low-High</option>
is wrong.
Edit:
Ok, I've created a simple theme that duplicates what you seem to have. In functions.php I have:
<?php
add_action('init', 'create_listing_post_type');
function create_listing_post_type() {
register_post_type('listing', array(
'labels' => array(
'name' => 'Listings',
'singular_name' => 'Listing',
'add_new_item' => 'Add a listing',
'edit_item' => 'Edit listing',
'new_item' => 'Add a listing',
'search_items' => 'Find a listing',
'not_found' => 'No listing found',
'not_found_in_trash' => 'No listing found in the trash'
),
'public' => true,
'supports' => array('title', 'editor', 'custom-fields')
));
}
?>
I went into the admin screen and added three listings:
Listing A, with an address of "Switzerland" and a price of 10000.
Listing B, with an address of "Australia" and a price of 50000.
Listing C, with an address of "UK" and a price of 20000.
I then added a new template in showlistings.php based on your code:
<?php
/**
* Template Name: showlistings
*/
get_header();
//$resultsorder = 'Price High-Low';
//$resultsorder = 'Price Low-High';
$resultsorder = 'a-z';
switch ($resultsorder) {
case "Price High-Low":
$metakey = 'price';
$order = 'DESC';
$orderby = 'meta_value_num';
break;
case "Price Low-High":
$metakey = 'price';
$order = 'ASC';
$orderby = 'meta_value_num';
break;
case "a-z":
$metakey = 'address';
$order = 'ASC';
$orderby = 'meta_value';
break;
}
$wpq = array (
'post_type' =>'listing',
'meta_key' => $metakey,
'orderby' => $orderby,
'order' => $order);
$listings = new WP_Query($wpq);
foreach( $listings->posts as $listing) {
echo $listing->post_title;
echo '<br />';
}
get_footer(); ?>
The good news is your code works for me: as I changed the value of the $resultsorder (changing the line commented out), I got the results expected.
So that leaves a few things to check:
Is the value of $resultsorder set as you expect (i.e. is it being submitted from your form, and is it being populated from the $_POST variable? put echo "\$resultsorder = $resultsorder"; somewhere in your output to check.
Are the price values stored in a way MySQL can parse them as numbers? For example, "10000", not (say) "$10,000". WordPress has MySQL convert the numbers to strings by adding 0 to them - if they can't be parsed as numbers, they'll all return 0 and any ordering will be meaningless.
Are the $alllistings and $_ids variables populated as you expect (i.e. is the expected branch of your if-then logic being executed? Again, using echo (or print_r) will help you check the values.
Do your string literals match exactly? Might be worth verifying that there are no subtle differences between your form values and the values you're checking in your PHP. You could have similar looking but different characters, or subtle case differences (eg "Price High-Low" vs "Price High-low")
I'd break up your investigation. Check that the form submission is working, then that the query arguments are being set correctly, then that the results are as expected.