Expanded meta key comparison operators in 5.3

WordPress 5.1 introduced the compare_key parameter for WP_Meta_Query, allowing developers to perform LIKE queries against postmeta keys. (See #42409 and the related dev note.) WordPress 5.3 expands the options available to compare_key, so that developers have access to metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress.-key comparison operators similar to those available for meta values. See #43446 and [46188].

After this change, compare_key accepts the following operators: =, LIKE, !=, IN,NOT IN,NOT LIKE,RLIKE,REGEXP,NOT REGEXP,EXISTS, andNOT EXISTS. Usage notes:

  • For parity with value operators, we’ve added support for EXISTS and NOT EXISTS. In the case of compare_key, these map to = and !=, respectively.
  • MySQLMySQL MySQL is a relational database management system. A database is a structured collection of data where content, configuration and other options are stored. https://www.mysql.com/. regular expression comparison operators (RLIKE, REGEXP, NOT REGEXP) are case-insensitive by default. To perform case-sensitive regular expression matches, it’s necessary to cast to BINARY. To support this, WP_Meta_Query now accepts a type_key parameter; pass 'BINARY' to force case-sensitive comparisons. (This directly parallels the use of type when using regular expressions to match meta value.)
  • As is the case with other WP_Meta_Query-related parameters, the parameters discussed here are available to WP_Query using the meta_ prefix: meta_compare_key and meta_type_key.

#5-3, #dev-notes, #query