ACF Field query by Repeater Field not empty - advanced-custom-fields

Question

Been reading up on info for querying ACF Fields in wordpress here, having trouble with this bit though:
$args = array(
'posts_per_page' => -1,
'post_type' => 'team_member',
'status' => 'publish',
'orderby' => 'title',
'order' => 'ASC',
'meta_query' => array(
array(
'key' => 'patents',
'value' => array(''),
'compare' => 'NOT IN'
)
)
);
$the_query = new WP_Query($args);
Basically, just trying to query all posts that have an ACF Repeater field, called patents that has at least 1 patent inside of it. How to do this?

Answer 1

I just had to deal with this myself, and what ended up working for me was querying for all posts where the value of the repeater field was greater than 0.
$args = array(
'posts_per_page' => -1,
'post_type' => 'team_member',
'status' => 'publish',
'orderby' => 'title',
'order' => 'ASC',
'meta_query' => array(
array(
'key' => 'patents',
'value' => 0
'compare' => '>'
)
)
);
Mark's answer to search for 'patents' = 1 only returned posts where the repeater field had one value.

Answer 2

http://www.advancedcustomfields.com/resources/the_repeater_field/
Try to access the repeater field first, then call the WP_Query. If you were to do something like:
if( get_field('repeater_field_name', $post_id) )
Then call the sub_field and/or in this case the WP_Query.
There is also this syntax, you can gather all the posts you need then scroll through posts:
if( have_rows('repeater_field') ):
while( have_rows('repeater_field') ) : the_row();
$sub = get_sub_field('sub_field');
Maybe you can call the wp_query on this level?

Answer 3

just check if the value is true
$args = array(
'posts_per_page' => -1,
'post_type' => 'team_member',
'status' => 'publish',
'orderby' => 'title',
'order' => 'ASC',
'meta_query' => array(
array(
'key' => 'patents',
'value' => true,
'compare' => '='
)
)
);
$the_query = new WP_Query($args);

Answer 4

Try this ..
This is not the standard solution for achieving the target but it will
work
Get all the post IDs whose repeater field(s) are there
<?php
$args = array(
'posts_per_page' => -1,
'post_type' => 'team_member',
'status' => 'publish',
'orderby' => 'title',
'order' => 'ASC',
);
$the_query = new WP_Query($args);
// The Loop
if ( $the_query->have_posts() ) {
while ( $the_query->have_posts() ) {
$the_query->the_post();
if ( have_rows('patents') ){
$allowed_ids[] = get_the_ID();
}
}
}
/* Restore original Post Data */
wp_reset_postdata();?>
Then run another Loop to get only those posts by their IDS
$args['post__in'] = $allowed_ids;
$the_query = new WP_Query($args);
// The Loop
if ( $the_query->have_posts() ) {
while ( $the_query->have_posts() ) {
$the_query->the_post();
$patents = get_field('patents');//array
}}