We're using the 'validatebyadmin' plugin but need to query some of the metadata entered on registration so that admin has more info regarding the registrant.

Using: 

access_show_hidden_entities(TRUE);

$ucountry =  elgg_get_metadata(array('guid' => $user->guid, 'metadata_name' => country));

We are able to create and array and if we use print_r(array_values($ucountry)); we can output the array and it appears like this:

Array ( [0] => ElggMetadata Object ( [attributes:protected] => Array ( [time_created] => 1416305932 [type] => metadata [id] => 9644 [entity_guid] => 3026 [name_id] => 482 [value_id] => 557 [value_type] => text [owner_guid] => 3026 [access_id] => 1 [enabled] => yes [name] => country [value] => DE ) [valid:protected] => ) ) 1

What we need to extract from this is the country value of 'DE' and set it as a variable but we are having no luck reading it from the array. Has this something to do with 'attributes:protected'? ... Is there any way around this as we really need to get more of the metadata to ensure that the registrants are valid.

Thanks for any help..