id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	priority	milestone	component	version	severity	resolution	keywords	cc
21621	setting meta_type doesn't CAST orderby value	wonderboymusic		"Setting {{{meta_type}}} in {{{WP_Query}}} will cast the {{{meta_value}}} in WHERE clauses to whatever {{{Meta_Query}}} internally resolves it as, however it does not create an alias and does not order by that alias. It orders by an un-CAST'd {{{meta_value}}} which doesn't work for numbers. I realize that {{{orderby}}} set to {{{meta_value_num}}} will fix this, but that doesn't change the fact that {{{meta_type}}} is being ignored.

To test:

{{{
update_post_meta( 1, 'num_as_longtext', 123 );
update_post_meta( 2, 'num_as_longtext', 99 );

add_filter( 'query', function ( $sql ) { error_log( $sql ); return $sql; } );
$stuff = new WP_Query( array( 
	'fields' => 'ids', 
	'post_type' => 'any', 
	'meta_key' => 'num_as_longtext', 
	'meta_value' => '0',
	'meta_compare' => '>',
	'meta_type' => 'UNSIGNED', 
	'orderby' => 'meta_value', 
	'order' => 'ASC' 
) );

print_r( $stuff->posts );

exit();
}}}

That should return 2 then 1, it returns 1 then 2. It generates this SQL:

{{{
SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS  wp_posts.ID FROM wp_posts  
INNER JOIN wp_postmeta ON (wp_posts.ID = wp_postmeta.post_id) 
WHERE 1=1  AND wp_posts.post_type IN ('post', 'page', 'attachment') AND (wp_posts.post_status = 'publish') AND ( (wp_postmeta.meta_key = 'num_as_longtext' AND CAST(wp_postmeta.meta_value AS UNSIGNED) > '0') ) 
GROUP BY wp_posts.ID ORDER BY wp_postmeta.meta_value ASC LIMIT 0, 10
}}}

My patch returns:

{{{
SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS  wp_posts.ID FROM wp_posts  
INNER JOIN wp_postmeta ON (wp_posts.ID = wp_postmeta.post_id) 
WHERE 1=1  AND wp_posts.post_type IN ('post', 'page', 'attachment') AND (wp_posts.post_status = 'publish') AND ( (wp_postmeta.meta_key = 'num_as_longtext' AND CAST(wp_postmeta.meta_value AS UNSIGNED) > '0') ) 
GROUP BY wp_posts.ID ORDER BY CAST(wp_postmeta.meta_value AS UNSIGNED) ASC LIMIT 0, 10
}}}
"	enhancement	new	normal	Future Release	Query	3.2	normal		has-patch