Removing duplicate titles retrieved from custom fields. Wordpress - php

Question

Following is the code that retrieves and outputs state name from custom select field into a navigation menu. For eg: if there is 5 post under state New York, this code shows only one post of New York in navigation drop down menu as redundant values are removed.. but what i want to do is , when the user clicks new york, it redirects to a new page where all the posts under New York will be displayed.. Same with all the states as well because this is a dynamic menu
$args = array('post_type' => 'article-form', 'showposts' => -1, 'orderby' => 'date', 'order' => 'DSC');
$city = new WP_Query($args);
$states = [];
while ( $city->have_posts() ) :
$city->the_post();
$state = get_field('state');
if ( !in_array($state, $states) ) :
$states[] = $state;
?>
<li>
<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" style="text-decoration: none; color: #9c9c9c;">
<?php echo $state;
?>
</a>
<hr style="margin: 0">
</li>
<?php
endif;
endwhile; ?>
<?php wp_reset_query(); ?>
</ul>

Answer 1

Try pushing unique values into an array
<?php $stateArray = array(); ?>
<?php while ($city->have_posts()):$city->the_post(); ?>
<li>
<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" style="text-decoration: none; color: #9c9c9c; ">
<?php
$state = the_field('state');
if (!in_array($state, $stateArray)):
echo $state;
array_push($stateArray, $state);
endif;
?>
</a>
<hr style="margin:0">
</li>
<?php endwhile; ?>
I hope it helps!
P.S Try to avoid inline css, use and external css file for any kind of stylining. Keep you html files as clean as possible.

Answer 2

#user3127632's idea of pushing values to an Array to check if they've been printed before is a good one, but there are a couple of mistakes in his/her code.
If you need to store an ACF's field value to a variable, you should use get_field() instead of the_field() as the last one doesn't return the value but print it. Also, you need to move the li and a nodes inside the condition, otherwise you won't be echoing the label in your link, but the duplicated link will still be there...
So, it would be something like this:
<?php
$states = [];
while ( $city->have_posts() ) :
$city->the_post();
$state = get_field('state');
if ( !in_array($state, $states) ) :
$states[] = $state; // A more efficient way to push values to an array
?>
<li>
<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" style="text-decoration: none; color: #9c9c9c;">
<?php echo $state; ?>
</a>
<hr style="margin: 0">
</li>
<?php
endif;
endwhile;
?>
I hope this helps!