exclude from search

Hé there,

Got a little PHP question..

I want to exclude a category from my search results. But can’t do it by ID.

function myFunctionName($query)

{
if ($query->is_search)
{
$query->set('cat','-'.$get_cat_id('category name').'');
}
return $query;
}
add_filter('pre_get_posts','myFunctionName');

I’m not a php wizard.. but i’m guessing the snag is in:

$query->set('cat','-'.$get_cat_id('category name').'');

I tried

$query->set('cat','-24');

Which works, but since I have some more installations of the same theme coming in the next month’s I want it to work on the category name instead of the ID. Due the ID won’t be the same in every installation and the name will.

Thanks!

Paul