Trying to order the query by a number variable $total that is a storing an api containing a number. My goal is to output an ordered list with the number ($total) sorting the list. I've looked around for a few different examples but nothing seems to work that I've stumbled across.
<?php
$shortcode = get_field('shortcode_for_data');
$url = 'api/?SHORTCODE=' . $shortcode;
$obj = file_get_contents($url);
$json = json_decode($obj, true);
$amountTotal = explode( '.', $json[0]['AMOUNT'] );
$total = number_format($amountTotal[0]);
//($total is outputting a number like 12,345 with a comma)
$output = new WP_Query(array(
'post_type' => 'output',
'posts_per_page' => -1,
'meta_key' => $total,
'orderby' => 'meta_value_num',
'order' => 'ASC'
));
echo '<ol>';
while($output->have_posts()) : $output->the_post(); ?>
<li>
<div><?php the_title(); ?></div>
<div><?php echo $total ?></div>
</li>
<?php } wp_reset_postdata;?>
<ol>
Goal (order by number):
Title Three 12,345
Title Two 11,345
Title One 999
Title Four 456