Retrieves the requested data of the author of the current post.

Description

Valid values for the $field parameter include:

• admin_color
• aim
• comment_shortcuts
• description
• display_name
• first_name
• ID
• jabber
• last_name
• nickname
• plugins_last_view
• plugins_per_page
• rich_editing
• syntax_highlighting
• user_activation_key
• user_description
• user_email
• user_firstname
• user_lastname
• user_level
• user_login
• user_nicename
• user_pass
• user_registered
• user_status
• user_url
• yim

Parameters

$fieldstringoptional

The user field to retrieve.

Default:''

$user_idint|falseoptional

User ID. Defaults to the current post author.

Default:false

Return

More Information

If used within The Loop, the user ID need not be specified, it defaults to current post author. A user ID must be specified if used outside The Loop.

get_the_author_meta() returns the data for use programmatically in PHP. To just display it instead, use the_author_meta()

If the specified meta field does not exist for this user, an empty string is returned.

Plugins may add additional fields to the user profile, which in turn adds new key/value pairs to the wp_usermeta database table. This additional data can be retrieved by passing the field’s key to the function as the $field parameter.

Source

function get_the_author_meta( $field = '', $user_id = false ) {
	$original_user_id = $user_id;

	if ( ! $user_id ) {
		global $authordata;
		$user_id = isset( $authordata->ID ) ? $authordata->ID : 0;
	} else {
		$authordata = get_userdata( $user_id );
	}

	if ( in_array( $field, array( 'login', 'pass', 'nicename', 'email', 'url', 'registered', 'activation_key', 'status' ), true ) ) {
		$field = 'user_' . $field;
	}

	$value = isset( $authordata->$field ) ? $authordata->$field : '';

	/**
	 * Filters the value of the requested user metadata.
	 *
	 * The filter name is dynamic and depends on the $field parameter of the function.
	 *
	 * @since 2.8.0
	 * @since 4.3.0 The `$original_user_id` parameter was added.
	 *
	 * @param string    $value            The value of the metadata.
	 * @param int       $user_id          The user ID for the value.
	 * @param int|false $original_user_id The original user ID, as passed to the function.
	 */
	return apply_filters( "get_the_author_{$field}", $value, $user_id, $original_user_id );
}

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Hooks

apply_filters( “get_the_author_{$field}”, string $value, int $user_id, int|false $original_user_id )

Filters the value of the requested user metadata.

Changelog