Find a User ID Based on User Meta Data in WordPress

I want to find the user’s id based on a piece of user metadata that I have.

The metadata I have is coming in as part of the url.

My url looks something like this:

http://example.com/users/wu8shti

where ‘wu8shti’ is a member id.

Here is how I find the user’s ID:

//
$uri = explode("/",$_SERVER[REQUEST_URI]); 
$member_id = $uri[2];

$args = array(
    'meta_query' => array(
        array(
            'key' => 'member_id',
            'value' => $member_id,
            'compare' => '='
        )
    )
);

$member_arr = get_users($args); //finds all users with this meta_key == 'member_id' and meta_value == $member_id passed in url

if ($member_arr) {  // any users found?
  foreach ($member_arr as $user) {  // in my case, there should only be one user with the id
    $user_id = $user->ID;           // so I just get the last one, which should be the only one
  }
} 
//

This code should be placed anywhere you need to access the user’s ID.

It could be in a function in the functions.php file or it could be in the page itself if you are using a plugin such as ‘php code’ which will allow you to use php code in the page.

Or you could just put it in a custom child page template.

Basically, anywhere you can use php code, you can use this in your WordPress site.