Multiple values in a rewrite rule, is it possible?

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I’m using url rewrites for a filter i’m building. The current solution works for one selected value. So if I select one type of dish like dinner, it goes to /recipes/dinner/.

But what if I want to filter on dinner and lunch? Is this possible, with the add_rewrite_rule?

The current solution is as followed.

add_filter( 'query_vars', function( $vars ) {
    $vars[] = 'course';
    return $vars;
} );

add_action( 'init', function() {
    add_rewrite_tag( '%course%', '([^&]+)' );
}, 10, 0 );

add_action( 'init', function() {
    add_rewrite_rule( '^recipes/([^/]*)/?', 'index.php?page_id=11&course=$matches[1]', 'top' );
}, 10, 0 );

And if it is possible what would be a logic url structure to follow?

1 Answer
1

As far I understand, you know are able to have an URL like example.com/recipes/dinner/ or example.com/recipes/lunch/ but now you also want to have an URL like example.com/recipes/dinner-lunch/ that pulls posts from both “dinner” and “lunch” courses.

In currents state of WP rewrites this is not possible just with add_rewrite_rule but you also need to use pre_get_posts to edit the query based on value catched by the rewrite rule.

For example:

add_filter('query_vars', function($vars) {
    $vars[] = 'course';
    return $vars;
} );

add_action('init', function() {
    add_rewrite_rule('^recipes/([^/]*)/?', 'index.php?page_id=11&course=$matches[1]', 'top');
}, 10, 0);

add_action('pre_get_posts', function($query) {
  if (! is_admin() && $query->is_main_query() && $query->get('course')) {
     // explode the value of matched course by -
     $courses = explode('-', $query->get('course'));
     // update the value in query with an array
     $query->set('course', $courses);
  }
});

The issue here is that if a “course” has an hyphen in the name, the explode will break the query, so maybe you can use a less common separator.

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