Advanced Custom Fields the_sub_field()['url'] but it doesn't return the URL

Question

this is a follow up to this question advanced custom fields can't do nested loops repeater inside repeater have_rows() not doing anything

Now I'm stuck on a problem where I can't get the sub field URL.

          <div class="tc__agenda-speaker">
              <?php while (have_rows('agenda_event_speakers')) : the_row(); ?>
              <div class="tc__agenda-speaker-headshot">
                  <!-- DEBUG LINE -->
                  <div style="color: red;"><?php echo the_sub_field('agenda_event_speaker_headshot')['src'] ?></div>
                  <img src="<?php the_sub_field('agenda_event_speaker_headshot')['url'] ?>" alt="<?php the_sub_field('agenda_event_speaker_headshot')['alt'] ?>">
              </div>
              <div class="tc__agenda-speaker-info">
                  <h4><?php the_sub_field('agenda_event_speaker_name') ?></h4>
                  <p><?php the_sub_field('agenda_event_speaker_title') ?></p>
              </div>
              <?php endwhile ?>
          </div>
        <?php endif ?>

This line

<?php the_sub_field('agenda_event_speaker_headshot')['url'] ?>

It's output is this

16835, 16835, Name color 2, Name-color-2.png, 152744, http://website.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Name-color-2.png, http://website.com/post/post-title-here/Name-color-2/, , 86, , , Name-color-2, inherit, 16799, 2021-02-02 16:45:53, 2021-02-02 16:45:53, 0, image/png, image, png, http://website.com/wp-includes/images/media/default.png, 500, 500, Array

The fields returns format is array

Advanced Custom Fields get sub field image

You can use get URL of Image by get_sub_field('imgcolumn_1')['url'];

As function get_sub_field() returns an array.

this documentation https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/resources/the_sub_field/ indicates there's no difference in accessing indexes

It does say

This function is essentially the same as echo get_sub_field()

If I go

<?php echo the_sub_field('agenda_event_speaker_headshot')['url'] ?>

the img src is unknown

How do you access url index of image array in a sub field in advanced custom fields?

TheGentleman TheGentleman · Accepted Answer · 2021-07-29T16:35:42

"Essentially the same" and "The same" is where you're getting tripped up. One of the places where the_sub_field() and get_sub_field() are different is when you are dealing with values that cannot be directly converted to a string.

To answer your immediate question; you need to do exactly what you talk about in the question, namely change:

<?php the_sub_field('agenda_event_speaker_headshot')['url']?>

To

<?php echo get_sub_field('agenda_event_speaker_headshot')['url']?>

The reason for this is that the_sub_field() does not return a value it echoes the value so there is no array with a property url for you to access. What your original code is doing is essentially the same as

$variable = null;
$variable['url'];

Which isn't what you want.

The reason that you're getting unknown is that the_sub_field() does attempt to output something; but because this particular subfield is more complex it doesn't work how you expect. Inside that function something like this is happening:

$subfieldValue = array();
echo $subfieldValue;
return;

I expect that if one were to look under the hood of the_sub_field() you would see something essentially like this:

function the_sub_field($key){
    $value = get_sub_field($key);
    echo $value;
    return;
}

Advanced Custom Fields the_sub_field()['url'] but it doesn't return the URL

2 Answers