v1.0.1

[1.0.1] - 2026-09-21

Fixed

• Meta search never activated. meta-search.php used
  function_exists( 'method_search_context' ) as its double-load guard. PHP
  binds top-level function declarations at compile time, so the check was
  already true on first load and the file returned before registering its
  posts_join / posts_search / posts_fields / posts_orderby filters.
  The guard is now a constant (METHOD_META_SEARCH_LOADED), and the
  implementation moved to meta-search-functions.php so a second copy can't
  trigger a compile-time "Cannot redeclare" fatal.
• -term exclusions. The rebuilt posts_search clause now strips core's
  exclusion prefix (honoring wp_query_search_exclusion_prefix) and emits
  NOT LIKE across title, excerpt, content, and meta columns. Meta columns
  are wrapped in COALESCE() so posts with no matching meta aren't wrongly
  excluded by the LEFT JOIN's NULLs. Excluded terms are omitted from
  relevance scoring.
• Missing method_relevance alias. The alias is now always selected
  (0 when nothing is scorable), so exclusion-only searches can't produce
  an ORDER BY on a nonexistent column.
• Long meta values truncated in search. GROUP_CONCAT was capped at
  MySQL's default group_concat_max_len (1024 bytes). It's now raised to
  1 MB per connection, once per request.

Security

• Added ABSPATH guards to method-search-tools.php and meta-search.php.
• mf[] sanitization is type-strict. Array-for-scalar input
  (mf[venue][]=x, mf[date][after][]=x) and scalar-for-array input are
  rejected before any cast, removing "Array to string conversion" warnings
  triggered by crafted URLs. Non-finite range bounds (e.g. 1e999) are
  rejected.
• Checkbox filters: nested arrays are dropped, values are de-duplicated, and
  submissions are capped at 50 values per filter. The cap only takes effect
  for checkbox filters without enumerable options, since the option
  whitelist already bounds the rest.

Changed

• Checkbox sanitization preserves "0" as a valid value (previously
  dropped by array_filter).

Added

• Filter method_search_group_concat_max_len (int, default 1048576).
  Return 0 to leave the server default.
• Filter method/search_filters/max_checkbox_values (int, default 50).
  Receives $max, $filter_key, $post_type.

Upgrade notes

• Meta search is live for the first time in this release. Expect relevance
  ordering and result sets to change on sites with
  method_search_meta_weights configured, and check search query time on
  staging.
• If a theme bundles its own copy of the old single-file meta-search.php,
  update it too. An old copy loaded alongside this version will fatal on
  redeclaration.