How to get Advanced Custom Fields field key from WordPress database?

Question

I’m using Advanced Custom Fields with post-type. I have some select custom fields, and I want to show all the label choices from each field.

I’ve tried this way.

Answer 1

Just trying to do this myself so I did some investigation. Seems each field and field group for ACF are stored in the wp_posts table in the database as custom post types. fields are 'acf-field' and groups are 'acf-field-group'.

I was able to use this function to get the field key to then use update_field($field_key, $value) on posts that didn't have the field already.

function get_acf_key($field_name){
    global $wpdb;

    return $wpdb->get_var("
        SELECT post_name
        FROM $wpdb->posts
        WHERE post_type='acf-field' AND post_excerpt='$field_name';
    ");
}

Then I was able to use:

update_field(get_acf_key('my_field_name'), 'some value', $post_id);

To either update the field for posts that had it already or add the field and it's key reference to posts that did not already have the field.

Answer 2

ACF provides some easy ways to help keep multiple environments in sync - you can register your fields with PHP or a local JSON file. Doing this would allow you to keep using get_field_object() with a single field key across multiple environments. See:

http://www.advancedcustomfields.com/resources/register-fields-via-php/

http://www.advancedcustomfields.com/resources/local-json/

I usually do my ACF development with the user interface and then export all of my fields groups as PHP to deploy across multiple environments.

UPDATE with a simple example: You could add this to functions.php or a custom plugin to add your field to multiple environments programmatically .. then you call get_field_object() with a common field_key across all environments

add_action('acf/init', 'wp123_add_local_acf_fields');
function wp123_add_local_acf_fields() {

    acf_add_local_field_group(array(
        'key' => 'group_1',
        'title' => 'My Group',
        'fields' => array (
            array (
                'key' => 'field_51ac9d333d704',
                'label' => 'Color de pelo',
                'name' => 'hair_color',
                'type' => 'select',
                'instructions' => 'Selecciona el color de pelo'
                'required' => 0,
                'choices' => array (
                    'bald' => 'Calvo',
                    'brown' => 'Castaño',
                    'brunette' => 'Moreno',
                    'red' => 'Pelirrojo',
                    'blonde' => 'Rubio',
                ),
                'default_value' => array (
                ),
                'allow_null' => 1,
                'multiple' => 0,
            )
        ),
        'location' => array (
            array (
                array (
                    'param' => 'post_type',
                    'operator' => '==',
                    'value' => 'post',
                ),
            ),
        ),
    ));

}