One of the things that makes developing on WordPress so fun is that it is such a simple platform. A little while back, I had to add custom query parameters for a WordPress project. I then re-used the same approach in my portfolio section to breakdown my projects by category. So, how do you query custom parameters in WordPress? You simply use the PHP standard _GET variable. Below is a simple example of how to query custom parameters in WordPress, based on what I am using on this site.
Query for Custom Parameter
In the case of my portfolio page, I wanted to be able to pass a parameter to the portfolio page to tell the page what kind of category to filter by. So, I created a custom parameter called “filter”. I could then set the paramter inside various links such as:
- http://miftyisbored.com/portfolio/?filter=websites
- http://miftyisbored.com/portfolio/?filter=apps
- http://miftyisbored.com/portfolio/?filter=illustrations
- http://miftyisbored.com/portfolio/?filter=etc…
Then, in my template file for my portfolio page, I add the following code
if(isset( $_GET["filter"] )){
$filter_type = $_GET["filter"];
if($filter_type == "websites"){
// do stuff related to websites
}else if($filter_type == "apps"){
// do stuff related to apps
}else{
// use the fallback case...
}
That’s all you need to query custom parameters in WordPress. Please note that this only works from within a template file. It will not work inside a wordpress post or a wordpress page.
