How can i select taxonomy terms applying filters on its fields?

Question

I'm building a project where i've decided to heavily use Drupal items (nodes, taxonomy, views) but i find hard to retrieve data in a simple way.

I've defined a taxonomy vocabulary with custom fields that are references to other vocabulary terms.

For example i have a book_author vocabulary and books vocabulary and need to get all the books written by a certain author tid.

Are there apis that i can use with a single call or do i have to use Sql queries on taxonomy_* field_data_* tables?

Answer 1

The EntityFieldQuery class is the normal tool fot this sort of task. Have a look at the docs for more information, but this is a basic example based around what you've mentioned in your question:

$query = new EntityFieldQuery;
$query->entityCondition('entity_type', 'taxonomy_term')
  ->propertyCondition('vid', $vocab_id_of_terms_you_want_to_select)
  ->fieldCondition('field_author', 'tid', $the_author_tid);

$results = $query->execute();

$found_terms = taxonomy_term_load_multiple(array_keys($results['taxonomy_term']));