Wordpress WP_Query not using keyword from url query value? - php

Question

I'm using a form to change the values in a WP_Query on a custom post type. I have 2 select fields using taxonomy values, and a keyword search. The select fields are working fine, however the keyword doesn't affect the query (although it shows up in the url query string).
The code for the keyword field is:
<input type="text" placeholder="Välj" name="referenser_keyword">
and the code for taking the query values is:
global $wp_query;
if (isset($wp_query->query_vars['referenser_material'])) {
$materialVal = $wp_query->query_vars['referenser_material'];
} else {
$materialVal = '';
}
if (isset($wp_query->query_vars['referenser_segment'])) {
$segmentVal = $wp_query->query_vars['referenser_segment'];
} else {
$segmentVal = '';
}
if (isset($wp_query->query_vars['referenser_keyword'])) {
$keywordVal = $wp_query->query_vars['referenser_keyword'];
} else {
$keywordVal = '';
}
$filteredLoop = new WP_Query(
array(
'post_type' => 'referenser',
'posts_per_page' => 4,
'referenser_material' => $materialVal,
'referenser_segment' => $segmentVal,
's' => $keywordVal,
'exact' => false,
'sentence' => true
)
);
If I change the $keywordVal value in the } else { from '' to a string, it works using the value I've entered, which makes me think it's always not set (and going through as empty in the query).

Answer 1

I hadn't defined the query variables correctly, adding the following to functions.php fixed it.
function referenser_query_vars_filter( $vars ){
$vars[] = "referenser_material";
$vars[] = "referenser_segment";
$vars[] = "referenser_keyword";
return $vars;
}
add_filter( 'query_vars', 'referenser_query_vars_filter' );