Move WordPress User Meta into Custom Table

This topic has 5 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 11 months ago by Nicholas Cox.

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June 15, 2021 at 7:04 PM #28910

Nicholas Cox
Participant

Hi

I am about to create a custom table to store user meta. But I noticed the users 'first_name' and 'last name' exists within the _usermeta database table. Is it possible to alter the way WordPress store this and move it from here into my custom table? or would I just have to ignore this and leave them blank/empty and then add in a first and last name column into my custom table?

I was thinking about when I come to make front end calls to grab the users custom meta, from my custom table, that the only 2 fields I would be missing are the first and last names. Would I have to query the first and last name separately? as I ideally wanted to achieve calling all the users meta in one for loop within my template.

Thanks, hope I'm making sense. Maybe I'm just overthinking the above query.

Nick

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June 16, 2021 at 2:09 PM #28931

Long Nguyen
Moderator

Hi Nicholas,

When editing or creating a user from the frontend, you can follow this documentation to replace the default user first name and last name fields and save data to the custom table https://docs.metabox.io/extensions/mb-user-profile/#edit-default-fields

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June 20, 2021 at 4:51 PM #29011

Nicholas Cox
Participant

Hi, ok thanks for this, I have created my fields and custom table and used the same ID's e.g. first_name etc and it does store the fields into my custom table correctly.

But I also noticed that it also stores the value into the 'wp_usermeta' table too. Is this correct? Is it supposed to behave like this?

Thanks

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June 20, 2021 at 10:32 PM #29016

Long Nguyen
Moderator

Hi,

If you register the user with the custom fields first_name, last_name on the frontend, the field value only saved in the custom table. But if you update the user info in the backend Admin dashboard > Users > Profile, the field value will be saved in both the custom table and the default table wp_usermeta because first_name, last_name are two default custom fields of WordPress. Can you please register a new user and re-check it?

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June 21, 2021 at 5:58 PM #29037

Nicholas Cox
Participant

Hi

Ah I was updating those fields in the backend, I have tested this in the front end form now and I can confirm it does not save it to the wp_usermeta table.

Thanks

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January 10, 2022 at 10:48 PM #33139

Nicholas Cox
Participant

Hi

I have just noticed that whenever a new user or a user updates a profile using metabox forms that the 'first_name' and 'last_name' meta keys are automatically re-added or created under in the database under 'wp_usermeta'. Why is this? is WordPress automatically creating this?

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