How to Search posts using LIKE for Category Name in wordpress?

Question

I need to customize the word press basic search filter.
It is working fine searching against keywords in post title and post content.
Now i need to show results where if user enters the name matching the category name, then it should pull results from that category as well as other results.

I am assuming, it should be something like using LIKE clause for the category_name or category_in operators in tax query.



$args = get_posts(array(
            'fields' => 'ids',
            'post_type' => 'post',
            'post_status' => 'publish',
            'posts_per_page' => -1,
            's' =>  $_REQUEST['s'] ? $_REQUEST['s'] : '' ,
            'tax_query' => array(
                 array(
                'taxonomy' => 'NAME OF TAXONOMY',
                'field'    => 'slug',
                'terms'    => 'SLUG OF the TERM', // LIKE (here should be any LIKE clause etc)
                 ),
            )   
        ));

How to achieve this scenario, means when user enters any keyword matching the category name it should pull all the results from that category along with general search results.

Example: In search bar user writes "ABC" and there is category available with name "ABC Park", then it should pull results from this category along with results having post titles and content which contain "ABC".

@AlivetoDie These links are not about searching from category name similar to search term. Also please have a look on edited question. Thanks. — Esar-ul-haq Qasmi

Esar-ul-haq Qasmi Esar-ul-haq Qasmi · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-10T10:19:50

Okay... I come up with a solution, I've fetched all category ids from table terms with a LIKE query, then in other query passed this array as a category parameter. Here is the code.

$term_ids=array(); 
      $cat_Args="SELECT * FROM $wpdb->terms WHERE name LIKE '%".$_REQUEST['s']."%' ";
      $cats = $wpdb->get_results($cat_Args, OBJECT);
      array_push($term_ids,$cats[0]->term_id);    



$q1 = get_posts(array(
        'fields' => 'ids',
        'post_type' => 'post',
        'post_status' => 'publish',
        'posts_per_page' => -1,
        's' =>  $_REQUEST['s'] ? $_REQUEST['s'] : '' 

));
 $q2 = get_posts(array(
        'fields' => 'ids',
        'post_type' => 'post',
        'post_status' => 'publish',
        'posts_per_page' => -1,
        'category' =>$term_ids
));
$unique = array_unique( array_merge( $q1, $q2 ) );

$posts = get_posts(array(
    'post_type' => 'post',
    'post__in' => $unique,
    'posts_per_page' => -1
));
  if ($posts ) : 

foreach( $posts as $post ) :
//show results
endforeach;
endif;

But Still i would like a more minimal and precise way. :)

How to Search posts using LIKE for Category Name in wordpress?

1 Answers