querying with custom meta field with meta_query

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How do we get posts where the meta key does not exist in a post.
I have created a meta_key video. and i want to be able to get some posts with WP_Query where custom field video does not exist or is blank.

$fsquery = new WP_Query( 
                        array ( 
                        'posts_per_page' => 1,
                        'featured' => 'yes',
                        'meta_key'=>'video',
                        'meta_value'=>''
                        )
                    );

this is not working.

3 Answers
3

There’s actually a better solution that will (hopefully) be rolling out in WordPress 3.4 — you can run the patch as a hotfix now if you’d like, but here’s the TRAC link for the patch:

http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/18158

With this, you can do …

    $my_query = new WP_Query( 
        array( 
            'meta_query' => array( 
                array(
                    'key' => 'foo',
                    'compare' => 'NOT EXISTS'
                )
            ) 
        ) 
    );

or, swap it out for ‘compare’ => ‘EXISTS’ instead if you like.

-George

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