WordPress tax_query “and” operator not functioning as desired

I have a custom post type of image with a custom taxonomy called image_tag (it’s hierarchical like categories). Here are some examples of the tags that might be used:

Structure (id: 25)
- House (id: 56)
- Skyscraper
Nature
- Animal
- Plant (id: 41)

So, I want to drill down through the images by selecting multiple tags in conjunction with the “and” operator. For example, finding all photos with plants and houses.

$query_args = array(
  'post_type' => 'image',
  'tax_query' => array(
    array(
      'taxonomy' => 'image_tag',
      'terms' => array(41, 56),    // IDs of "plant" and "house"
      'operator' => 'and',
    ),
  ),
);

That works fine, the problem begins when I try to include the parent terms, for example:

$query_args = array(
  'post_type' => 'image',
  'tax_query' => array(
    array(
      'taxonomy' => 'image_tag',
      'terms' => array(25, 41),    // IDs of "structure" and "plant"
      'operator' => 'and',
    ),
  ),
);

Then I get no results. I’m guessing that because I’m using the “and” operator, WordPress doesn’t include the children of the “Structure” term. Does anyone have an idea how I can get this to work, or some other solution to achieve this?

Answers:

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Method 1

not tested but give this a shot

'tax_query' => array(
   'relation' => 'AND',
    array(
      'taxonomy' => 'image_tag',
      'field'    => 'term_id',
      'terms'    => 25,
      'operator' => 'IN',
    ),
    array(
      'taxonomy' => 'image_tag',
      'field'    => 'term_id',
      'terms'    => 41,
      'operator' => 'IN',
    )
  ),

OR

'tax_query' => array(
   'relation' => 'AND',
    array(
      'taxonomy' => 'image_tag',
      'field'    => 'term_id',
      'terms'    => array(25,41),
      'operator' => 'IN',
    ),
  ),

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0