Using depth with get_categories?

why can’t you use wp_list_categories? What is it about the theme that doesn’t allow you?

If you can get this generated code with wp_list_categories, then I would like to see how it is done.

<li id="cat18" class="current" ><a>Category Title</a></li>

Here is the original code:

<?php $cats = get_categories('hide_empty=0&child_of=16&depth=2');
	foreach ((array)$cats as $categ) {
		echo '<li id="cat'.$categ->cat_ID.'" ';
		if (($category[0]->cat_ID==$categ->cat_ID)&&($tagged=='')){ echo 'class="current" ';}
		echo '><a>'. $categ->cat_name . '</a></li>';
}?>

bump

I’m having this same problem. Wp_list_categories doesn’t give me the flexibility I need, because I can’t seem to display both title and description with that function. But I need to be able to limit depth with get_categories.

Does anyone have ideas on how I might be able to write a wrapper function around get_categories that would allow me to display subcategories to only one depth?

Thanks in advance for your help.

i also request this, need depth on get_categories

need more vanilla functions that don’t try to create the links and format the output. just return the values

I agree, joshua4. This is how I ended up solving my problem. It’s inelegant, but it works.

If you, like me, want to limit get_categories to a depth of one, you can do this:

<?php global $ancestor; // Declare global ancestor variable ?>
<?php foreach ($categories as $cat) {
	if ($cat->cat_ID != 1) { // If category is not uncategorized ...
	if (cat_is_ancestor_of($ancestor, intval($cat->cat_ID)) == false) { // .. and if the previous category in the loop wasn't the ancestor of this one ... ?>
		<h2><a href="<?php echo get_category_link($cat->cat_ID); ?>"><?php echo ($cat->cat_name); ?></a></h2>
		<?php echo ( category_description($cat->cat_ID) );  ?>

		<?php
		$ancestor = intval($cat->cat_ID); }; // make this category the new ancestor
		};
	};
?>

If you want to limit depth to two (like displayname does above), you could declare a global $grandparent variable, then at the end of the loop, make the former $ancestor the new $grandparent and the current category the new $ancestor. Then just add another $greatgrandparent if you want a depth of three levels, and so on and so on.

This is a mighty hacky way of just getting depth for get_categories. I think I’ll submit a ticket for that.

I submitted this as an idea, so if you’re reading this thread and want a better solution than the one I posted above, rate this idea up!

Thanks for the hack, mthomps.

I also put in my vote for adding “depth” but this will get me through for the moment!

Hi,

I was just looking for a way to display the number of the top categorys (depth=1).
Maybe this is not exectly what you are looking for, but i think you might customise it for your needs.

I used a db query to get my results:

$numcats = $wpdb->get_var("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM $wpdb->term_taxonomy WHERE parent=0
AND taxonomy = 'category';");
echo $numcats;

It displays exectly what I needed (the number of the topcategories) but if you use an other query string you might get your results.