How to get real term_meta using ACF with custom fields on taxonomy terms (instead of wp_options)

Question

Having a simple Woocommerce site, I'm using ACF pro to add some custom fields to the terms of a given taxonomy. Using this, I can, for example, add a "color" field to my "product category" taxonomy terms. Good.

The issue:

Wanting to do some query using get_terms() (codex), I discovered that my meta_query parameters were not working (unexpected results). Why ? My custom fields were not saved (from backend) as term_meta but as wp_option.

It seems that ACF 4 is saving those fields, not as term_meta (as it's designed for), but as wp_option, in the Wordpress options table. So you cannot "query terms by terms_meta" (meta_query) using get_terms() (codex) to get some terms based on some term_meta value.

Answer 1

I could fix this doing the following:

Let's say I have 2 custom fields on my taxonomy terms: color and shape (means I have a color and shape input on my backend terms edit/create page for the given taxonomy).

function acf_update_term_meta( $value, $post_id, $field ) {
    $term_id = (int) filter_var( $post_id, FILTER_SANITIZE_NUMBER_INT );
    if ( $term_id > 0 ) {
        update_term_meta( $term_id, $field['name'], $value );
    }

    return $value;
}
add_filter( 'acf/update_value/name=color', 'acf_update_term_meta', 10, 3 );
add_filter( 'acf/update_value/name=shape', 'acf_update_term_meta', 10, 3 );

function acf_load_term_meta( $value, $post_id, $field ) {
    $term_id = (int) filter_var( $post_id, FILTER_SANITIZE_NUMBER_INT );
    if ( $term_id > 0 ) {
        $value = get_term_meta( $term_id, $field['name'], true );
    }

    return $value;
}
add_filter( 'acf/load_value/name=color', 'acf_load_term_meta', 10, 3 );
add_filter( 'acf/load_value/name=shape', 'acf_load_term_meta', 10, 3 );

So we have:

• a filter to update the term_meta using update_term_meta() (codex) when updating this ACF fields (hooked 2 times, one for color and one for shape)
• a filter to return the term_meta value using get_term_meta() (codex) instead of the wp_option (hooked 2 times, one for color and one for shape)

source

Note 1:

this will trigger for ALL terms (no matter the taxonomy) having the color or shape custom field. You may need to filter by taxonomy if you don't want it to always apply in those fields cases.

Note 2:

ACF5 seems to support out-of-the-box real term_meta, but is still in early access only. The upgrade process seems to contain a refactor method for this particular case (duplicate data from wp_options to real term_metas):

After updating to ACF 5, you will be prompted to upgrade the Database.

This is a necessary step to migrate across your field and field group settings from version 4.x. This upgrade will also copy across any taxonomy term values from the 'wp_options' table to the 'wp_termmeta' table.

No data is deleted or modified during this upgrade. (source)

Note 3: I believe it would be possible to loop on all ACF terms custom fields to "generate" this code automatically for all custom fields on terms, and prevent having to add 2 filters for each new ACF term field. But as ACF5 should go out soon, it may not be worth the time.