I have corresponded with the author of the above-linked Smashing Magazine article. He said his article was incorrect, and he has revised the article.
The article now states: “If you use the query() method or any other function where you write raw SQL (like get_var()), you will need to escape manually, using the prepare() method.”
Update: I think you’re saying I should walk through the objects returned by bp_get_field_groups, and find the ID I want. That would work! Thx.
But why bother? My custom function is more efficient. Only reason not to do raw SQL is if the back end table schema changes, in which case I expect bp_get_field_groups would still work, but my custom function would break.
I simply don’t believe there isn’t a built-in way to do this without writing your own SQL
Would be convenient, but i can’t find any. I searched all BuddyPress 2.5.0 files for any references to the ‘bp_xprofile_groups’ table. I found it in the following files:
None of these pull Group ID based on Group Name. Does not seem to exist. Some do refer to the ID field, but they are raw SQL statements.
I did see some caching code, so that might help me figure out how to cache this function. Perhaps i can pull the data from a cache? \bp-xprofile\classes\class-bp-xprofile-group.php seems like it might have some clues about that.
Also found the tableprefix code: $bp->table_prefix.
“if you use any of the helper functions, then you don’t need to do anything: the query is escaped for you.”
get_var, which I’m using, is one of the helper functions.
Re caching, this function will return different values, depending on what kind of user is logged in (because I’ll pass in different $FieldgroupName values). Can that still be cached?
so i created a custom function to achieve this. It works:
function bp_Get_FieldgroupID($FieldgroupName){
global $wpdb;
// will want to dynamically find table name for future wordpress installs.
$query = "SELECT ID FROM wp_t9s5y8_bp_xprofile_groups WHERE name = '$FieldgroupName'";
return $wpdb->get_var($query);
}
What i don’t know is how to dynamically find the table name– obviously no one else can use this function in their BP until it dynamically uses the correct table name. I welcome any help with that.
i think it was the right decision not to integrate BP Member Types with WP Roles– they are different.
Member Types is a front-end kind of thing. It describes the kind of user, eg their ‘title’: Coach, Artist, Student, Teacher, Apprentice, etc. These can be reflected in the Member’s public profile page: “Hi, I’m an: Artist” etc.
Roles determine back-end privileges. Authors can only do certain things on the back-end. Admins can do other things.
In my WP, we have Types: Apprentice, Artist, and Team-Member. ALL are Role: “Author”– they all have the same back-end privileges.
