get_terms() orderby name is not working - wordpress

Question

I'm using wordpress, want first-level taxonomy terms to be ordered by name but below code is not giving me desired result. Here is my code:

$args = array(
    'taxonomy' => 'tax-category', 
    'hide_empty' => 0,
    'hierarchical' => 1,
    'parent' => 0,
    'orderby'=>'name',
    'order' => 'DESC',
    'fields' => 'all',
);
$rs_terms = get_terms('tax-category', $args);

When I'm adding below php sorting, it works perfectly. But want to know why wordpress's default sorting is not working properly:

usort($rs_terms, function($a, $b){
    return strcmp($a->name, $b->name);
});

Answer 1

Showed up here with the same problem, and like others mentioned, the culprit was a plugin related to taxonomy sorting. Category Order and Taxonomy Terms Order , in my case. I deactivated it, and my terms list popped into order.

Answer 2

Your code should work fine. I had for same problem and I found a hook in my plugin that changed 'orderby' value. It might be the same case.
I suggest you look for a filter function hooked to get_terms() in your plugin/theme.

Possible hooks:

• terms_clauses
• get_terms_orderby
• get_terms_args

EDIT: Before you go scanning the hooks you should try adding 'menu_order' => false to your args, it might do the job for you. There are taxonomies with manual drag&drop sorting (menu_order), so you just need to unable it.

Answer 3

I just tested your code on my localhost and it works.

                    'orderby'           => 'name', 
                    'order'             => 'ASC',
                    'hide_empty'        => false, 
                    'fields'            => 'all', 
                    'parent'            => 0,
                    'hierarchical'      => true, 
                    'child_of'          => 0,
                    'childless'         => false,
                    'pad_counts'        => false, 
                    'cache_domain'      => 'core'

Answer 4

You may also check your PHP modules installed. Assuming you're on PHP 7.x, make sure no APC or APCu modules are loaded.

php -m | grep -i apc

Should come with no output.

Answer 5

I had the same problem. I was using the plugin Intuitive Custom Post Order that does ordering by drag and drop in WordPress admin panel. This was overriding my "orderby" in get_terms(), so I changed ordering from admin panel. If you use any similar plugin it maybe overrides the "orderby".

Answer 6

Try with wpdb

<?php
global $wpdb;
$rs_terms = $wpdb->get_results( "
    SELECT
        t.*
    FROM
        {$wpdb->prefix}term_taxonomy AS tt
    INNER JOIN
        {$wpdb->prefix}terms AS t
        ON t.term_id = tt.term_id
    WHERE
        tt.taxonomy = 'tax-category'
        AND tt.parent = '0'
    ORDER BY
        t.name DESC
" );
?>

Answer 7

Same issue here, I confirm what Cory was mentioning, the Category Order and Taxonomy Terms Order does change the search order. I was able to work around with removing the plugin filter just for my request with the code below.

remove_filter('terms_clauses', 'TO_apply_order_filter', 10, 3);

//do your stuff here...

add_filter('terms_clauses', 'TO_apply_order_filter', 10, 3);