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Get Top Parent Category (WordPress)
There are many times when you need to show or get the top most (root) parent category in WordPress - regardless of how many subcategories you might be deep. I have used this logic for page navigation (highlight the top parent tab) - as well as within some custom loops/sidebar code.
They way to do this:
PHP:
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<?php
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$parentCatList = get_category_parents($cat,false,',');
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$topParentName = $parentCatListArray[0];
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?>
To test this you can simply put it in your header and echo out $topParent and you will see the "slug" of the category.
If you want to see the category name and not necessarily the slug - you can simply echo $topParentName.
It just echos out “Object”..
@ those interested
post;
$category = get_the_category();
$parent = get_cat_name($category[0]->category_parent);
if ($parent == “Interviews” ) {
include(TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/single_interview.php’);
} else {
include(TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/single_blog.php’);
}
?>
this sees if the parent is “Interviews” and opens “single_interview.php”
this is the whole code for the “single.php”… coz the redirect is the normal single post template which it “single_blog.php”
Put a if (is_category()) {} around the code and then echo it out. Check out the full example: http://www.sandboxdev.com/downloads/wordpress-logic/top-category.phps
thanks alot!!
i was searching for a long time to find such a solution
hmm, why isn’t it working on the front page?
what can I change that it will output the cat. name on the frontpage?
I want to add the top parent category name as a class!
thx
greets froms switzerland
Hello f1sHMaN from Chicago! Do you have this logic within (is_category()){}? Make sure you check out the comment above yours where you can see the logic in action.
that is the problem! what can i change to have the name of the topcategory (topParentName) on the frontpage?
your script only goes on the category page.
On the frontpage it returns: object…
thx alot!
What u want this code is only applicable for single template and category template.
post;
$category = get_the_category();
$parent = get_cat_name($category[0]->category_parent);
if ($parent == “Interviews” ) {
include(TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/single_interview.php’);
} else {
include(TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/single_blog.php’);
}
?>
This is great! Thank you so much!!!
I have a question:
How can I make this work for the single view of a post.
Say I have a category Gallery and a category Work.
With your code I have body class = category_gallery for the Gallery and body class = category_work for the work category. Great!
Now I’d like to have body class = single_gallery when on the single view for any post in the Gallery category and body class = single_work when on a single post in the work category.
I hope that’s not too confusing.
How would this be done?
Any way to make it a live link?? I’m sure there IS a way… I’m just not that savvy when it comes to wordpress codex. Any help would be appreciated!!
Did you take a look: http://www.sandboxdev.com/downloads/wordpress-logic/top-category.phps (mentioned in the 2nd comment)?
Yes, I did… and it says/shows nothing about how to make it a link.
But I hacked myself a solution. Not ideal, because it’s not entirely dynamic. So, if the site structure ever changes, it will break. But it will do for now.
`<a href="/dish/category/” title=”">`
Oops, tried to page the code in comments, but didn’t work:
Basically, my link structure looks like this:
href=”/dish/category/ECHO BODYID HERE”
Wow.. Thanks for the list
Thanks! You just saved me some time and frustration in hacking this out myself.
Big thanks ! Your code resolved my need to display banners by category groups (aka parents).
Thank you again !
Thanks for this.Im going to give it a try.
This works for me! Thanks!
Great! I have a question dough. Ik kan know get the top parent name and the top parent slug. How do i get de top parent ID?
[... - http://www.sandboxdev.com is other nice place of tips. Online Car insurance claims [… -
Much thanks for this.
Change $topParentName = $parentCatListArray[0];
To Change $topParentName = $parentCatListArray[1];
and to get the second category down if your in a subcategory.
This is EXACTLY what i was searching for! Thanks for sharing this snippets.