Query argument 'orderby' makes duplicated parameters possible; does not support some available columns

[ChriCo]

In your newest post in ​make-blog there a serveral errors in code.

1. Duplicated parameters are possible. Following Code will output the "error":

$query = new WP_Query( array( 'orderby' => array( 'title' => 'DESC', 'post_title' => 'ASC' ) ) );

//ouputs: ORDER BY post_title DESC, post_title ASC

2. Why is

• "title" equal to "post_title"
• "name" to "post_name"
• "author" to "post_author"

and so on?

3. By the way, "date_gmt", "post_status", "modifed_gmt", "content_filtered", "mime_type", "type" are missing...

4. there are some columns missing in "orderby".

[jesin]

Remove duplicate orderby column names

[jesin]

Cause: The parse_orderby() function prefixes post_ to names like date, author, title in the "default" case of its switch block.

The 29424.diff patch checks if a column name exists already in the $orderby_array and skips a loop if it does.

I found another bug which was also patched in this file.

$query = new WP_Query( array( 'orderby' => 'post_title post_date post_author', 'order' => 'ASC' ) );

//Outputs: wp_posts.post_title ASC, wp_posts.post_date ASC, wp_posts.post_author

Notice the missing ASC for the last column. This is caused by the use of implode() to add the "order" index.

[johnbillion]

Moving to 4.0 for investigation

[jesin]

Patch 29424.diff with unit tests

[jesin]

Patch 29424.2.diff contains unit tests. The other bug I mentioned in comment 2 does not exist, it was my mistake.

[johnbillion]

This orderby parameter is ambiguous at best and erroneous at worst:

'orderby' => array(
    'title' => 'DESC',
    'post_title' => 'ASC'
)

If you're performing a query such as this then your code is incorrect. What is the expected value of the ORDER BY clause in this case? 29424.2.diff​ actually makes this behaviour even more confusing, because it silently discards the second of the duplicated fields.

For these reasons, we don't plan to handle such values in this parameter and the current behaviour won't be changed.

Regarding the missing fields available in the orderby parameter ("date_gmt", "post_status", "modifed_gmt", "content_filtered", "mime_type", "post_type"), this is not a change in 4.0, so I'm punting this ticket while I look to see if this has already been reported in another ticket.

[boonebgorges]

+1 to johnbillion's conclusions regarding duplicate parameters.

Regarding the missing fields available in the orderby parameter ("date_gmt", "post_status", "modifed_gmt", "content_filtered", "mime_type", "post_type"), this is not a change in 4.0, so I'm punting this ticket while I look to see if this has already been reported in another ticket.

I've done some searching and can't find another ticket. We can add these columns if we get a patch + unit tests.

[birgire]

Adds missing orderby fields + tests

[birgire]

Regarding the missing orderby fields, 29424.3.diff​ adds support for:

• post_date_gmt
• date_gmt
• post_modified_gmt
• modified_gmt
• post_status
• comment_status
• ping_status
• post_mime_type
• mime_type

with a test for each one.

Note that I skipped status here, as I think it wouldn't be clear what was being referred to: post_status, comment_status or ping_status.

ps: I also searched for any other ticket on this, but couldn't find it.

[birgire]

The patch 29424.4.diff​ refreshes 29424.3.diff​ as it no longer applies cleanly to trunk.

It uses dataprovider for the unit testing.

[birgire]

This ticket came to mind (regarding the few missing order by columns) when looking into the support for sorting columns in WP_Privacy_Requests_Table in #43960, as it includes a status column.

[davidbaumwald]

The 29424.4.diff patch no longer applies to trunk cleanly. With version 5.3 Beta 1 landing tomorrow, this is being punted to 5.4.

[davidbaumwald]

With 5.4 Beta 1 only a few days away and this ticket having seen little movement in some time, this is being moved to Future Release. If any committer or maintainer feels this can be refreshed in time or wishes to assume ownership during a specific cycle, feel free to update the milestone accordingly.