I didn’t bother to look up the exact terms, but it would be something like this:
$query=”SELECT cat_id FROM $wpdb->categories WHERE category_nicename = $your_slug”;
Thread Starter
ivovic
(@ivovic)
I was hoping to use an internal function to maybe take advantage of a previously run query if possible… but failing that, this’ll work out great.
Thank you.
Thread Starter
ivovic
(@ivovic)
Still looking for an already populated variable, or some other way to avoid a query, but … in the mean time:
$id = $wpdb->get_var("SELECT term_id FROM $wpdb->terms WHERE slug='$myslug'");
does the trick.
I figure I may as well do this unless someone has a better idea?
You can also loop through the categories like this:
foreach(get_categories() as $category){
if($category->slug == $THE_SLUG){
$THE_ID = $category->cat_ID;
}
}
Thread Starter
ivovic
(@ivovic)
cheers for that wp_guy.
EDIT: I just realised you were talking about get_categories (not get_the_category) which can be used outside the loop, in which case your post may actually prove very useful, although I’m sure get_categories uses a query too. Excuse my mistake.
…
I wasn’t very specific in my opening post though, but let me fill you in.
I’m not doing this in the loop – I’m going to assemble a page based on a user profile field, so… if you enter YourCompany in the profile field, and your user level is sufficient, you’ll be able to view a page which pulls posts from various categories with slugs such as ‘yourcompany’, ‘yourcompany-tickets’, ‘yourcompany-news’ etc.
so I will have ‘YourCompany’ as the user profile field, but now I need to pull the category IDs for each of those categories I mentioned earlier — outside the loop of course… to be stuffed into various areas like the main content and the sidebar as well.
Basically I’m trying to be a tricky bastard, to avoid having to modify templates each time there’s a new company available. I’ll just make the categories, and the page will work.
thanks for adding your 2cents though – these threads are useful forever.
Thread Starter
ivovic
(@ivovic)
yep, as I suspected, this isn’t something that uses variables already pulled by other queries, so get_categories adds a query, but then so does wp_list_categories in the sidebar.
I may be just picky enough to do this once, then build my own category list from a global var in the sidebar… we’ll see.
thanks for the suggestion though – it’s another viable option.
Thread Starter
ivovic
(@ivovic)
As it turns out… I’m now pulling two category IDs each time, so it makes more sense to use get_categories() and loop through them, as I’d have to loop through either way.
thanks wp_guy!
No problem… I just tend to avoid raw database queries in case the database structure changed in future WP releases.
Thread Starter
ivovic
(@ivovic)
yep – with my luck though, half the undocumented functions I’m using to play with the user metadata will change in the next version. *sigh*
WordPress has a get_cat_id() function. See this page for an example: http://curtishenson.com/get-the-category-id-in-wordpress/
If I have the category slug, how can I get it’s category ID?
Wow. I can’t believe nobody got this one right.
$category = get_category_by_slug('slug');
echo $category->term_id;
🙂
Yeah and you probably just grabbed that answer from one of the files in wp-include too. Like, um…. category.php ?
🙂
Well.. of course. Where else would I get it from?
I refer to the WordPress source to answer most of the questions here. 🙂
It would be the best reference, it’s hard for the code to contradict the docs (unless it’s a bug). And that particular file is quite well commented. Plus, not every function or CSS class is documented in the Codex.
