get_category_by_slug() │ WP 2.3.0

Gets category data by its alternative name (slug).

Uses: get_term_by(), _make_cat_compat()
1 time — 0.004096 sec (very slow) | 50000 times — 4.40 sec (fast) | PHP 8.2.25, WP 6.8.1

No Hooks.

Returns

Object|false. Category data.

Usage

get_category_by_slug( $slug );
$slug(string) (required)
Alternative name of the category. The name used in the URL.

Examples

0

#1 Get the category ID by passing its slug to the function 

$cat = get_category_by_slug( 'category-name' ); 

if( $cat ){
	$id = $cat->term_id;
}

The variable $cat will contain the following data:

// category ID
$cat->cat_ID

// Category name
$cat->cat_name

// Alternative category name
$cat->category_nicename

// Category description (set on the category editing page)
$cat->category_description

// ID of the parent category
$cat->category_parent

// Number of posts in the category
$cat->category_count
0

#2 What the returned object looks like 

$cat = get_category_by_slug( 'codex' ); 

/*
WP_Term Object
(
	[term_id]    => 37
	[name]       => Codex
	[slug]       => codex
	[term_group] => 0
	[term_taxonomy_id] => 37
	[taxonomy]    => category
	[description] => This category contains articles 
	[parent]      => 3
	[count]       => 41
	[filter]      => raw
	[term_order]  => 1
	[cat_ID]               => 37
	[category_count]       => 41
	[category_description] => This category contains articles 
	[cat_name]          => Codex
	[category_nicename] => codex
	[category_parent]   => 3
)
*/

Changelog

Since 2.3.0 Introduced.

get_category_by_slug() code WP 6.9

wp-includes/category.php 
function get_category_by_slug( $slug ) {
	$category = get_term_by( 'slug', $slug, 'category' );

	if ( $category ) {
		_make_cat_compat( $category );
	}

	return $category;
}

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