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Thread tagged as: Question, Problem

Trying to use php var as perch_content_custom 'vaule'

I can't see why this isn't working. On a page I have this

$selected_state = perch_content("State Selection", true);

And inside that content block there is one field, a selection as below

 <perch:content id="state_selection" type="select" label="State" options="Western Australia, Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales, Northern Territory, South Australia, Tasmania" allowempty="false" required="true" encode="false" />

On the page, this seems to create a var with the correct string. When printing or echoing, it comes up as selected 'Western Australia'. When I try and do this further down the page - it doesn't work.

perch_content_custom('Centre Details', array(
  'page'=>'/centres/*',
  'template'=>'centre-index-list.html',
  'filter'=>'centre_state',
  'match'=>'eq',
   'value' => $selected_state,
  'sort' => 'centre-name',
  'sort-order' => 'ASC'
));

Nothing comes up. If I use the string 'Western Australia' it's fine. If I set 'Western Australia' as a php var and use that it works. Why is my $selected_state var not working?

I've tried using srtval to make sure it's a string but that still didn't work.
Bruce Reynolds

Bruce Reynolds 0 points

  • 3 years ago
Simon Clay

Simon Clay 127 points

3 years ago

Hi Bruce,

Not sure if this is the problem, but centre-name might cause issues, as dashes should not be used in Perch IDs.

Can you enable debug to see if it highlights any problems https://docs.grabaperch.com/perch/configuration/debug/
Drew McLellan

Drew McLellan 2638 points
Perch Support

3 years ago

Have you checked for trailing whitespace? Applying trim() to the string might help.
Bruce Reynolds

Bruce Reynolds 0 points

3 years ago

Hi Simon - I didn't know that but it's been running fine for years and as mentioned, if I use just a normal string or a var I've set to be a string the custom code works.

Hi Drew - I tried trim, it still didn't work and even tried switching on the trimmed var to see if it contained the string but it didn't match on anything

case stristr($trimmed, 'Western Australia'):
Drew McLellan

Drew McLellan 2638 points
Perch Support

3 years ago

What does this output?

print_r(perch_content_custom("State Selection", [
'skip-template' => true
]));
Bruce Reynolds

Bruce Reynolds 0 points

3 years ago

I got the below - I also tried creating a new Perch content area State Selection 2 to see if there was some naming bug

Array
(
    [0] =&gt; Array
        (
            [_id] => 107
            [state_selection] => Western Australia
            [_page] => *
            [_pageID] =>; 103
            [_sortvalue] => 1000
        )

)
Array
(
    [0] =&gt; Array
        (
            [_id] => 108
            [state_selection] => Western Australia
            [_page] => /centres/child-care-centre-perth.php
            [_pageID] => 103
            [_sortvalue] => 1000
        )

)

I was expecting some sort of array for the result but echoing it seemed to just output the string.
Bruce Reynolds

Bruce Reynolds 0 points

3 years ago

So it seems that drilling down into the object allowed me to use the string in as a perch_content_custom var.

$state = perch_content_custom("State Selection", [
                'skip-template' => true
                ]);

$my_string = $state[0]['state_selection'];

                perch_content_custom('Centre Details', array(
                    'page'=>'/centres/*',
                    'template'=>'centre-index-list.html',
                    'filter'=>'centre_state',
                    'match'=>'eq',
                    'value' => $my_string,
                    'sort' => 'centre-name',
                    'sort-order' => 'ASC'
                    ));