I have a Custom Post Type called “cars” that stores several custom fields along with the standard Title/Description fields. I need users to be able to search through the CPT based on the custom fields matching the user’s criteria. I figured that part out and it works, but the problem is pagination. I figured out how to paginate the CPT based on code I found on Google, and it works, but once you leave page 1, you no longer have the search data submitted with the form. I just need to know how I should store this or pass it along.
In regular PHP I would just use a session to store the data, but I’ve been told not to do that with WordPress. So, what is the best option? I’ve been told Transients are the WP version of sessions, but I’m not sure how to efficiently use them for this and how to keep them separate for each user.
I’m not asking for anyone to write this for me — I just need some help understanding the best concept for this.
Instead of implementing a custom search query, instead include the custom fields in the standard search, and use rewrite rules to map /?post_type=cars&s=mysearchterm to /search/cars/mysearchterm . Or just use the query vars in the URL rather than POST/$_POST or transient data. GET/$_GET is your friend here.
Transients are intended for storing data temporarily rather than recalculating it, e.g. RSS feeds, and other things that are expensive to calculate that may not have a permanent lifetime. They are not a replacement for sessions ( nor should you need sessions or some other analogue ).
This should show you how to bundle the custom fields in the search:
http://stv.whtly.com/2010/03/15/extend-wordpress-search-to-include-custom-post-meta/
Test against $wp->query_vars['s'] or get_query_var( 's' ) to see if your search query is for your post type so you can then conditionally include the custom meta search bits.
credits: thanks kaiser for the get_query_var tip
