Magento

Hi, I am wondering if there is a way to get a list of all categories for ... a store?  I am new to magento.  I am programming a script that is to be run on the command line via a cron, and I want to sync categories from an incoming list.  Therefore I want to get a list of existing categories from magento so I know whether to add one as a new category or not.

Thanks!

Use the API. Create a web services user with full access, generate them a key then login from your script with that user/key. The methods for pulling the category information are all documented in the API, start pulling arrays back, dump them out and then work out how your custom app is to work.

Yeah, I’ve seen that you can do something like that with a SOAP call to your web application...but why wouldn’t you be able to do that through the Mage classes?  I think that’s a point of confusion for me.  Is that just something overlooked in the class set?  Can you even load magento data, by name for instance ( like doing an sql search) via the Mage classes?

thanks though

Well, after many var_dumps and get_class_methods calls, I have come up with some non-SOAP calls to get categories.  Not too efficient, but hope this helps…

require_once ‘app/Mage.php’;
Mage::app();

function get_categories(){

$category = Mage::getModel(’catalog/category’);
$tree = $category->getTreeModel();
$tree->load();

$ids = $tree->getCollection()->getAllIds();
$arr = array();

if ($ids){
foreach ($ids as $id){
$cat = Mage::getModel(’catalog/category’);
$cat->load($id);
array_push($arr, $cat);
}
}

return $arr;

}

require_once $_SERVER[’DOCUMENT_ROOT’]."/app/Mage.php";
Mage::app(’1’);

function nodeToArray(Varien_Data_Tree_Node $node)
{
$result = array();
$result[’category_id’] = $node->getId();
$result[’parent_id’] = $node->getParentId();
$result[’name’] = $node->getName();
$result[’is_active’] = $node->getIsActive();
$result[’position’] = $node->getPosition();
$result[’level’] = $node->getLevel();
$result[’children’] = array();

foreach ($node->getChildren() as $child) {
$result[’children’][] = nodeToArray($child);
}

return $result;
}

function load_tree() {

$tree = Mage::getResourceSingleton(’catalog/category_tree’)
->load();

$store = 1;
$parentId = 1;

$tree = Mage::getResourceSingleton(’catalog/category_tree’)
->load();

$root = $tree->getNodeById($parentId);

if($root && $root->getId() == 1) {
$root->setName(Mage::helper(’catalog’)->__(’Root’));
}

$collection = Mage::getModel(’catalog/category’)->getCollection()
->setStoreId($store)
->addAttributeToSelect(’name’)
->addAttributeToSelect(’is_active’);

$tree->addCollectionData($collection, true);

return nodeToArray($root);

}

function print_tree($tree,$level) {
$level ++;
foreach($tree as $item) {
echo str_repeat("    ", $level).$item[’name’]."<br>";
print_tree($item[’children’],$level);

}
}

$tree = load_tree();
print_tree($tree[’children’],0);

catan,
thank you very much - you just saved me huge time. I have spent many hours trying to find good way of getting categories for home page content - and yours works like a charm

Thank you.

I’m trying to get the url path for each category also.
I tried :
$result[’url’] = $node->getCategoryUrl($result[’category_id’]);
and
$result[’url’] = $node->getUrl();
But it’s empty.

If I use :
$result[’url’] = $node->getData(’path’);

I get [url] => 1/3/4

I need the html file name.

thanks

I got it.

In this section of code I added the url_path part:

And in the nodeToArray method I added this:
$result[’url_path’] = $node->getData(’url_path’);

@eiocreative

Hi
I have being through the code and this is very interesting to get the list of categories is simplifies my work . But can some body tells me where does all this code goes to get the expected result

It works, but how to filter by current store?

I tried $store = Mage::app()->getStore()->getId();

However, the $collection isnt really filtered.

$collection = Mage::getModel(’catalog/category’)->getCollection()->setStoreId($store)->addAttributeToSelect(’url_path’)->addAttributeToSelect(’name’)->addAttributeToSelect(’is_active’);

Still doesnt filter by store…

Great post! Thanks!
Interested too in Morningtime question…
I would like to iterate over all the stores to show all the categories.

Could you please advise how the returned array $arr can get the structure as follows? Thx in advance.
array (
name = > category_id
)

require_once ‘app/Mage.php’;
Mage::app();

function get_categories(){

$category = Mage::getModel(’catalog/category’);
$tree = $category->getTreeModel();
$tree->load();

$ids = $tree->getCollection()->getAllIds();
$arr = array();

if ($ids){
foreach ($ids as $id){
$cat = Mage::getModel(’catalog/category’);
$cat->load($id);
array_push($arr, $cat);
}
}
return $arr;
}

I`ve found solutions:

?>

To answer the original question of this post:

I made this little video on how I create custom category listing blocks with Magento.
I am sure there are better ways of achieving this or even something I could have done better, but it’s just my method. I only created this it in hopes that it helps explain somethings to some people out there.

Magento Custom Category Listing Tutorial

Thanks!

hi devinrayolsen, hi everybody,

I saw your method on your video, could you please paste your code here ?

I’m using this

<?php //if(count($this->getStoreCategories())>1): ?>
<ul id="general_catalog">
<?php $i=1; foreach ($this->getStoreCategories() as $_category): ?>
<?php echo $this->drawItem($_category, ' item-'.$i) ?>
<?php $i++; if ($i>9): $i=1; endif; endforeach ?>
</ul>
<?php //endif; ?>

that works, BUT my problem is to get All categoris, not by store view.
is it your code the right one ? ?

thanks.
mic b.

a simple code to get all the category names..

$collection= Mage::getModel(’catalog/category’)->getCollection()
->addAttributeToSelect(’name’)
->addAttributeToSelect(’is_active’);

foreach($collection as $col)
{

$col->getName();

}

you can get all the details of a category from its supporting functions..for a list of functions for category, use the following code…

echo ‘<pre>’;
print_r(get_class_methods($collection));
echo ‘</pre>’;