How can I group entries based on a string value?

Question

I have been able to successfully group entries via dateTime field. I have been trying to carry over the same type of logic only instead of using .date just key off of the field value.

{# Get all entries from the section. #}
{% set entries = craft.entries.section('mySection') %}

{# Loop through the entries and get the user account associated with each. #}
{% for profiles in entries %}
    {% set users = profiles.userAccount %}

    {% if users|length %}
        {% for year, user in users|group('myYearField') %}
            <h4>{{ year }}</h4> {# 2016 #}
            <ul class="list-unstyled">
                {% for user in users %}
                    <li><a href="{{ profiles.url }}">{{ user.name }}</a></li>
                {% endfor %}
            </ul>
        {% endfor %}
    {% endif %}
{% endfor %}

Currently what I am getting is:

2016
    User
2016
    User
...

What I am trying to get (I swear I had this working at one point) is this:

2016
    User
    User

2017
   User
   User

EDIT

It seems my trouble comes from not accessing the users field correctly. Updated (but still incorrect) example:

{% set allProfiles = craft.entries.section('mySection') %}
{% if allProfiles|length %}
    {{ allProfiles|length }} {# 3 #}
    {% for profiles in allProfiles %}
        {% for profile in profiles.userAccount %}
            {% for year, user in profile|group('yearFieldHandle') %}
                <h1>{{ year }}</h1>  {# No output #}
                <h2>{{ profile.firstName }}</h2>    {# Bob #}
                <h3>{{ profile.myYear }}</h3> {# 2016 #}
            {% endfor %}
        {% endfor %}
    {% endfor %}
{% endif %}

Answer 1

There’s a lot to unpack here. Before I get to the solution, I’ll step through each of your examples, line-by-line. Hopefully that will help explain the behavior you’re seeing.

First Example

{# Get all entries from the section. #}
{% set entries = craft.entries.section('mySection') %}

Your comment is correct – this will fetch all the entries from section mySection and assign them to a new variable called entries.

{# Loop through the entries and get the user account associated with each. #}
{% for profiles in entries %}

Start a loop on the entries variable. Within the loop, each profile entry will be represented by a profiles variable.

Note: it’s misleading to call your variable “profiles” rather than “profile”, since it will only represent a single profile entry.

    {% set users = profiles.userAccount %}

Fetch all of the user accounts related to the current profile (profiles) via the userAccount field, and assign them to a new variable called users.

    {% if users|length %}

Only do the following if there were any related users…

        {% for year, user in users|group('myYearField') %}

Turn the users (users) that are related to the current profile (profiles) into a multi-dimensional array, grouped by their myYearField field values. Then start a loop on that multi-dimensional array. Within the loop, each myYearField value will be represented by a year variable, and the array of grouped user accounts will be represented by a user variable.

Note: This is where things start really going wrong. You want to group all of your users by year – not just the ones that are related to the current profile. Also, your choice of “user” as a variable name here is misleading since it’s actually an array of grouped users; not a single user.

            <h4>{{ year }}</h4> {# 2016 #}

Output the current grouping’s myYearField value, which was assigned to a year variable.

            <ul class="list-unstyled">
                {% for user in users %}

Start a loop on the same users variable that you’re already in the middle of looping through. users here refers to the same users variable that was defined in the 3rd codeblock.

                    <li><a href="{{ profiles.url }}">{{ user.name }}</a></li>

Output the profile entry’s (profiles) URL, and the current user’s (user) name.

                {% endfor %}

Close out the loop on the user accounts related to the current profile entry (users).

            </ul>
        {% endfor %}

Close out the loop on the multi-dimensional array of year-user groupings based on the user accounts related to the current profile entry (users).

    {% endif %}

Close out the conditional checking if there any users related to the current profile entry.

{% endfor %}

Close out the loop on the profile entries (entries).

---

Second Example

{% set allProfiles = craft.entries.section('mySection') %}

Fetch all the entries from section mySection and assign them to a new variable called allProfiles.

{% if allProfiles|length %}

Only do the following if there were any profile entries…

    {{ allProfiles|length }} {# 3 #}

Output the total number of profile entries.

    {% for profiles in allProfiles %}

Start a loop on the allProfiles variable. Within the loop, each profile entry will be represented by a profiles variable.

Note: as with the last example, it’s misleading to call your variable “profiles” rather than “profile”, since it will only represent a single profile entry.

        {% for profile in profiles.userAccount %}

Fetch all of the user accounts related to the current profile (profiles) via the userAccount field. Start a loop on the user accounts. Within the loop, each user account will be represented by a profile variable.

Note: it’s misleading to call your variable “profile”, since it is actually the user account, not the profile entry.

            {% for year, user in profile|group('yearFieldHandle') %}

Turn the current user account (profile) into a multi-dimensional array, grouped by its properties’ yearFieldHandle sub-property values (which isn’t a thing). Then start a loop on that multi-dimensional array. Within the loop, each yearFieldHandle value will be represented by a year variable, and the array of grouped user account properties will be represented by a user variable.

Note: Since profile is a single element (the user account) and not an array of elements, nothing about this is likely doing what you expected it to.

                <h1>{{ year }}</h1>  {# No output #}

Output the current grouping’s yearFieldHandle value, which was assigned to a year variable. (This is the equivalent of doing something like profile.id.yearFieldHandle. It’s expected that you wouldn’t get any output.)

                <h2>{{ profile.firstName }}</h2>    {# Bob #}

Output the user account’s first name.

                <h3>{{ profile.myYear }}</h3> {# 2016 #}

Output the user account’s myYear custom field value.

            {% endfor %}

Close out the loop on the multi-dimensional array of year-user account property groupings based on the current user account defined by the parent loop.

        {% endfor %}

Close out the loop on the user accounts related to the current profile entry.

    {% endfor %}

Close out the loop on the profile entries (allProfiles).

{% endif %}

Close out the conditional checking if there any profile entries.

---

Solution

To group all of your profiles by their related user accounts’ custom date fields, first let’s load the profiles, eager-loaded with their related user accounts:

{% set profiles = craft.entries({
    section: 'userProfiles',
    with: ['userAccount']
}) %}

Next let’s group the profiles by the myYear custom field on their related user accounts:

{% set profilesByYear = profiles|group('userAccount[0].myYear') %}

Now we can loop through the years, and their corresponding user profiles/accounts:

{% for year, yearProfiles in profilesByYear %}
    <h1>{{ year }}</h1>

    {% for profile in yearProfiles %}
        {% set user = profile.userAccount[0] ?? null %}
        {% if user %}
            <h2>{{ user.firstName }}</h2>
            <h3>{{ user.myYear }}</h3>
        {% endif %}
    {% endfor %}
{% endfor %}