Pods Repeater Field

Repeatable field groups for Pods — the feature ACF calls a "Repeater", as a standalone field type.

Pods can repeat a single value. It cannot repeat a group of fields. This plugin adds a repeater field type: you define a set of sub-fields once, and the editor can add, remove and reorder rows of them.

Status: 0.3.0-alpha. It works and it is tested, but it has not seen much use outside this repository. Read Known limitations before you build on it.

Support: issues are read, but there is no support promise and no release schedule. This is a one-person alpha published because the feature is missing from Pods, not a product.

What it looks like

Two repeaters on one Pod — a track list and the pressings of a record. Both tables are repeater rows rendered in a template, not hard-coded markup:

Track list (10 rows)	Pressings (2 rows)

The demo record collection (scripts/demo/) is deliberately concrete: real albums and real track lists, so a reviewer can tell whether the data survives a round trip. Catalogue numbers and pressing years are illustrative.

Why this exists

Repeatable field groups have been requested in Pods for years (Issue #109, Discussion #7238) and are still not in core. This plugin implements the feature outside of core: usable now, adoptable into core later if the maintainers want it.

Requirements

The test suite runs against the WordPress 6.8.2 test library on PHP 7.4 and PHP 8.3. The plugin itself is exercised on WordPress 7.1 with Pods 3.3.9.1.

Install

Download the release zip and upload it under Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, or clone this repository into wp-content/plugins/pods-repeater.

Quick start

1. Define the sub-fields. Pods → Field Groups (wp-admin/admin.php?page=pods-repeater-groups) — add a group, for example track with nr (number), titel (text), laenge (text), stil (text).
2. Add the field. Edit your Pod, add a field of type Repeater, and pick the field group you just created.
3. Edit content. The post editor renders a table: one row per entry, with Add row, Remove and up/down buttons. It saves as a normal form POST — no React, no build step, works with the classic editor and inside Pods' own forms.
4. Read it in a template.

// Plain Pods API: an array of rows.
$tracks = get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), 'tracks', true ); // JSON string
$rows   = pods_repeater_get_rows( 'tracks', get_the_ID(), 'platte' );

// ACF-compatible loop (aliases can be disabled via the
// pods_repeater_register_acf_aliases filter):
if ( have_rows( 'tracks', get_the_ID() ) ) {
    while ( have_rows( 'tracks', get_the_ID() ) ) {
        the_row();
        echo esc_html( get_sub_field( 'nr' ) . ' — ' . get_sub_field( 'titel' ) );
    }
}

Sub-fields can also be defined inline as JSON in the field options (repeater_sub_fields) if you would rather not use the field group screen. The screen is the recommended path — it validates types and labels for you.

Storage

Rows are stored as one JSON string in wp_postmeta, or in the Pods table column for table-based Pods. No extra tables, no custom schema, no serialized PHP.

Which sub-field types work

text, textarea, paragraph, wysiwyg, code,
number, website, email, password,
date, time, datetime, color, boolean, pick

pick covers select, radio and checkbox as long as the options are defined on the sub-field. The list is filterable via pods_repeater_supported_sub_types.

file, avatar and oembed are not supported inside a row — see below.

Known limitations

• No file / avatar / oembed sub-fields. Those types render through Pods' React field editor, which does not initialise inside a cloned row: from row two on the picker would be dead. Put such a field on the Pod itself instead of inside the row.
• No nested repeaters. A repeater cannot contain another repeater. The server rejects the configuration and strips such values on write.
• Field groups are managed in the admin only. No WP-CLI, REST or import/export route for the field-group registry yet.
• No ACF data migration. Existing ACF Repeater data is not imported; this field stores its own JSON.
• No block-editor UI. The field renders server-side; Gutenberg and the REST API see the stored value.

Development

composer install                 # PHPUnit, PHPCS, WordPress PHPUnit test library
npx wp-env start                 # WordPress + Pods 3.3.9.1 + this plugin

# inside the wp-env container:
vendor/bin/phpunit --testsuite PodsRepeater
vendor/bin/phpcs pods-repeater.php includes classes ui

127 tests, 2455 assertions, green on PHP 7.4 and 8.3 (GitHub Actions runs both). The suite boots the WordPress PHPUnit test library against a real WordPress installation with Pods loaded from wp-content/plugins/pods; tests/wp-tests-config.php takes the paths and database credentials from the environment, so the same tests run under wp-env and in CI.

scripts/build-release-package.sh builds the release zip from an allowlist. scripts/verify-pr-package.sh checks the portable copy of the field class against the source, so the file meant for a core PR cannot drift from the plugin.

License

GPL-2.0-or-later, see LICENSE.