get_category_template(): string
- Since
- 1.5.0, 4.7.0
- Source
wp-includes/template.php:254
Description
The hierarchy for this template looks like:
- category-{slug}.php
- category-{id}.php
- category.php
An example of this is:
- category-news.php
- category-2.php
- category.php
The template hierarchy and template path are filterable via the '$type_template_hierarchy' and '$type_template' dynamic hooks, where $type is 'category'.
Compatibility
- WordPress
- since 4.7.0
- PHP
- 7.4–8.6-dev
- 6.7.7
- 6.8.8
- 6.9.7
- 7.0.4
- 7.1.0
Present in every tracked release (6.7.7 to 7.1.0), and compiles on PHP 7.4 through 8.6-dev.
Return value
string- Full path to category template file.
Performance profile
How much work a call to get_category_template() does, and what it touches: the algorithmic scaling, the Zend instruction count per call across PHP versions, the hooks it hands control to, and the core code that calls it. Measured from the compiled opcodes, not a stopwatch, so every number is identical on any machine running the same PHP version, and every function in core is ranked by cost.
- Cost class
- Trivial
- Scaling
- Constant
- Instructions
- 13–38
- Plugin surface
- None
- Called by
- 0
Touches nothing outside its own arguments.
No loop in the body: the same number of instructions runs whatever you pass in.
Executed per call on PHP 8.5, depending on the branch taken. The body compiles to 38.
Nothing here hands control to plugin code.
Nothing in core calls this; the cost is only what you spend yourself.
What it touches
- hookthird-party callbacks
apply_filters()one call below get_category_template()
Further down the call graph this can also reach option, cache, serialize, query and transient. Those are the worst case, several calls deep and usually down an error path, not what a normal call pays.
What one call costs · 2 distinct outcomes
One number would be a lie: the work depends on which branch runs. These are every distinct cost get_category_template() can have, taken from its control-flow graph on PHP 8.5.
| When | Instructions | Calls it makes |
|---|---|---|
empty($category) | 13 | get_queried_object(), get_query_template() |
!empty($category) | 33–38 | get_queried_object(), urldecode(), get_query_template() |
Across PHP versions
Compiles the same on PHP 7.4, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5 and 8.6-dev: 38 instructions, 13–38 executed per call, 2 branches. The work does not change between versions.
An instruction is not a fixed amount of time, so a matching count is not necessarily the same speed; what it rules out is a difference in the work itself.
Uses · 2
- get_queried_object()Retrieves the currently queried object.
- get_query_template()Retrieves path to a template.
Source code
function get_category_template() { $category = get_queried_object(); $templates = array(); if ( ! empty( $category->slug ) ) { $slug_decoded = urldecode( $category->slug ); if ( $slug_decoded !== $category->slug ) { $templates[] = "category-{$slug_decoded}.php"; } $templates[] = "category-{$category->slug}.php"; $templates[] = "category-{$category->term_id}.php"; } $templates[] = 'category.php'; return get_query_template( 'category', $templates );}Changelog
Introduced in 1.5.0. Unchanged from 6.7.7 through 7.1.0.
Signature, return type and hooks compared across 5 parsed releases.
category-{slug}.php was added to the top of the template hierarchy when the category slug contains multibyte characters.from the docblockAbout this page
- Parsed data
- Generated from the wordpress-develop 6.7.7 tag, from
src/wp-includes/template.php, and regenerated for each WordPress release so it tracks the code rather than a snapshot of it. - Corrections
- Something wrong on this page? Report it and it gets fixed in the next regeneration.