How to handle “the_terms” inside loop

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I have been searching google but I am really confused. I am trying to display the terms of the taxonomy assigned to the post. I am using the_terms($post->ID, 'locations');. The custom taxonomy is hierarchical.

Example: 3 terms assigned to post: USA(parent) > FL(direct child of "USA") > Miami(direct child of "FL"). What I get: FL, Miami, USA which means the terms are being displayed in alphabetical order. I want them to be displayed like: Miami, FL, USA. Can this be achieved? I would also like to remove the anchors from the terms and strip_tags(the_terms($post->ID, 'locations')) doesn’t seem to work.

While searching google some people use get_terms() some other get_the_terms and others the_terms which is what I use and seems to work – output the terms. What is the difference between those functions? Am I using the right one?

2 Answers
2

To answer your first question

What is the difference between those functions

  • get_terms() returns an array of terms objects that belongs to a specific taxonomy

  • get_the_terms() returns an array of terms belonging to a post

  • the_terms() displays an HTML formatting string of term names belonging to a post

Because you need your terms not hyperlinked and ordered according to parent, I believe wp_get_object_terms() will be a better option here. wp_get_object_terms() also returns an array of terms belonging to a post, but is more flexible. You do pay for this flexibility though as you make an extra db call per post.

With this all in mind, you can try the following: (All code is untested)

$args = [
    'orderby' => 'parent', 
    'order'   => 'DESC' 
];
$terms  = wp_get_object_terms( $post->ID, 'locations', $args );
$names  = wp_list_pluck( $terms, 'name' );
$output = implode( ', ', $names );
echo $output;

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