WP_User_Query( array('role' => $role) ) should accept array or not return anything if array

[thomask]

I got a small problem with WP_User_Query - i wanted to find users from more then one roles to send them e-mail, so i did

$role = array('role-1','role-2);
$wp_user_search = WP_User_Query( array('role' => $role) );
$users = $wp_user_search->get_results()
foreach ($user) ... send wp_mail

problem is, that role param accepts only string. It would not be a problem if it would return nothing, problem was, that it actually returns ALL users, so i have send my author-only emails to all thousands users in database :-(

I know that it is my fault, that i have to read documentation, but i thought, that it works as other wp queries, so if the parame do not fit, it throws error, but it does not.

+1. I use array_merge on two or more queries. It would be nice to pass an array, as long as the result is one effective query.

needs-patch indeed.

+1 to allowing an array of roles. I have to run multiple user queries and merge the arrays on a regular basis.

#23258 was marked as a duplicate.

Related: #23045

+1 From me. Needs to accept an array of roles.

Of course, I'd also like to see a default template for a list of all users. The archive for an individual author exists, but I think there should also be an archive of all the authors, but I guess that should be a new ticket.

Please see attached patch for fix. I've set the default value of 'role' to array with backwards support for give a String as argument.

Tickets are marked as fixed when a changeset is commited to trunk which fixes the issue.

Replying to ocean90:

Tickets are marked as fixed when a changeset is commited to trunk which fixes the issue.

I'm sorry!

Unit Test to test user.php.patch

$qv['meta_query']['relation'] = 'OR';

So, this won't work as expected:

$users = get_users( array(
  'role' => array( 'foo', 'bar' ),
  'meta_query' => array(
    'relation' => 'AND',
    array(
      'key' => 'some_other_key',
      'compare' => 'EXISTS'
    ),
    array(
      'key' => 'another_key',
      'compare' => 'EXISTS'
    )
  )
) );

OTOH, 'relation' => 'OR' already doesn't work as expected when you pass any value to 'role'.

Maybe use a separate WP_Meta_Query instance for querying the roles and definitely add tests for both of these corner cases.

Thanks for your feedback. I've tried to setup a separate instance of WP_Meta_Query but this resulted in a database error because the same meta table was joined without an alias multiple times (WP_Meta_Query.get_sql). As far as I could see it's not possible to use WP_Meta_Query to do multiple meta queries from separate WP_Meta_Query objects on the same meta table.

I did not want to change or extends the WP_Meta_Query class so I've extended the WP_User_Query.prepare_query function to let it create the SQL statements required to do a proper user fetch.

Attached patch (user.php.2.patch) solves more then reported bug/enhancement, it also solves:

• using the 'meta_query' in combination with the 'OR' relation returns all users (with all roles)
• using the 'meta_query' in combination with the 'OR' relation in multisite returns all users (of all blogs)

I will add Unit Tests tomorrow.

I think it should be work like this

WP_User_Query( array('role__in' => array( 'role-1', 'role-2' ) ) )

And when array is used in 'role' arg , it should return null .

Alex, I disagree with that kind of markup since you have two ways to select role. So what happens when you pass the rolein and role arguments? That can trow confusion.