Category links on posts on the index page

Yea one of Tracks’ users actually came up with a nice solution for this: https://wordpress.org/support/topic/main-category-of-blog-post?replies=4#post-7714797

Here’s the function:

function ct_tracks_category_link() {
        $category      = get_the_category();

		$category_name = array();	//create array for all category names of the element
		$category_link = array();	//create array for all category links of the element

		foreach($category as $cat) {

			$category_parent_id = $cat->category_parent;

			if ($category_parent_id) {
				$category_parent_link = get_category_link($category_parent_id);
				$category_parent_name = get_cat_name($category_parent_id);
				$html_parent          = "<a href='" . $category_parent_link . "'>" . $category_parent_name . "</a> / ";
			}

			$category_link[] = get_category_link( $cat->term_id );	//save all category names of the element
			$category_name[] = $cat->cat_name;						//save all category links of the element

		}

		for ($index=0; $index<sizeof($category_name); $index++) {
			if ($category_name[$index] != $category_parent_name) {
				$html         .= "<a href='" . $category_link[$index] . "'>" . $category_name[$index] . "</a> & ";
			}
		}

		$html = $html_parent . $html;	//place parent at first place and add the "lower" categories after it

		$html = substr($html, 0, -3);

        echo $html;
    }

This function can be copied and pasted into the functions.php file of a child theme.

If that all sounds like gibberish let me know and I can put together a child theme for you 😉

Woops sorry I didn’t remember that correctly.

Try this instead:

function ct_tracks_category_link() {
		$category = get_the_category();
		$category = $category[0];
		if ( $category->parent > 0 ) {
			$category = get_category( $category->parent );
		}
		$category_link = get_category_link( $category->term_id );
		$category_name = $category->cat_name;
		$html          = "<a href='" . esc_url( $category_link ) . "'>" . esc_attr( $category_name ) . "</a>";
		echo $html;
	}

This is very similar to the original function, but I’ve updated it to check if the selected category has a parent category. If it does, the category being used is then switched to the parent category.

No worries, I’m happy to help 🙂

Would you mind taking a minute to leave a review instead? I would really appreciate it.

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Thanks!