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1. mwaterous
   Member
   Posted 2 years ago #

   I'm having a problem with get_cat_id returning 0/false on categories I know exist and also have posts in them.. I even ran a test, using the category slug provided to get the id, and it doesn't work either.

   The test code looks like;

   $vid = get_cat_id('vendors');
   $categories = get_categories('child_of=' . $vid . '&hide_empty=0');
   foreach($categories as $category) {
   	echo get_cat_id($category->slug) . '<br />';
   }

   ...returns a bunch of 0's. Any ideas why this isn't working?

2. MichaelH
   Volunteer
   Posted 2 years ago #

   Use get_cat_ID.

3. s_ha_dum (was apljdi)
   Member
   Posted 2 years ago #

   delayedinsanity, PHP is case sensitive.

4. mwaterous
   Member
   Posted 2 years ago #

   Thanks guys, but I'm not new to PHP. :) PHP variables and member properties are case sensitive, functions are not. That is why the following code;

   function test () {
       echo 'test';
   }
   function Test () {
       echo 'Test';
   }

   Will return; Fatal error: Cannot redeclare test() (previously declared in ***.php:1) in ***.php on line 3

   So not the issue, though I'll make sure I double check my semantics in the future. In the meantime I've discovered using get_cat_ID was pointless anyways as inside of the foreach loop I had access to $category->cat_ID.

   Nonetheless I still get some odd business with get_cat_ID() - I turned on paging for my custom loop, and for some reason previous_posts_link() was working but next_posts_link() wasn't. So I took the body of my function which created and displayed the custom loop, and placed it directly in the page just to see if there was a global missing somewhere. Upon doing so, get_cat_ID failed again, this time for gawd knows what reason.

   Not sure, but I think I'll start by looking at the functions body itself.

5. shahar
   Member
   Posted 2 years ago #

   Was having the same problem 'til I realised it was due to using the langswitch plugin...

6. MichaelH
   Volunteer
   Posted 2 years ago #

   This works just fine using the WordPress Default theme and putting this code
   

   <?php
   echo 'this is the category id for uncategorized: '. get_cat_ID('uncategorized');
   ?>

   just after <div id="content" class="narrowcolumn" role="main"> in wp-content/themes/default/index.php

7. relvao
   Member
   Posted 2 years ago #

   Today I had the same problem...

   You must use the category name for this function, not the slug.

8. pantsonhead
   Member
   Posted 2 years ago #

   relvao is correct, you must use the category name, not the slug.

   Also, this function will NOT return the ID if your category name contains "&".

   example: get_cat_ID('Bits & Pieces');

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