wppaste
WordPress

get_the_category_by_ID( int $cat_id ): string|WP_Error

Since
0.71
Source
wp-includes/category-template.php:109
Retrieves category name based on category ID.

Compatibility

WordPress
since 0.71
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.

Parameters

$cat_idint
Category ID.

Return value

string|WP_Error
Category name on success, WP_Error on failure.

Performance profile

How much work a call to get_the_category_by_ID() 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
Heavy

Reaches the database via get_term().

Scaling
Constant

No loop in the body: the same number of instructions runs whatever you pass in.

Instructions
12–14

Executed per call on PHP 8.5, depending on the branch taken. The body compiles to 16.

Plugin surface
None

Nothing here hands control to plugin code.

Called by
1

1 place in core call this, so the cost is paid more often than your own code shows.

What it touches

  • querycontent queryget_term()called directly
  • hookthird-party callbacksapply_filters()one call below get_the_category_by_ID()

Further down the call graph this can also reach option, cache, serialize 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 · 1 distinct outcome

One number would be a lie: the work depends on which branch runs. These are every distinct cost get_the_category_by_ID() can have, taken from its control-flow graph on PHP 8.5.

WhenInstructionsCalls it makes
always12–14get_term(), is_wp_error()

Across PHP versions

Compiles the same on PHP 7.4, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5 and 8.6-dev: 16 instructions, 12–14 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_term()Gets all term data from database by term ID.
  • is_wp_error()Checks whether the given variable is a WordPress Error.

Used by · 1

Source code

View on Trac View on GitHub 

function get_the_category_by_ID( $cat_id ) { // phpcs:ignore WordPress.NamingConventions.ValidFunctionName.FunctionNameInvalid	$cat_id   = (int) $cat_id;	$category = get_term( $cat_id ); 	if ( is_wp_error( $category ) ) {		return $category;	} 	return ( $category ) ? $category->name : '';}

Changelog

Introduced in 0.71. Unchanged from 6.7.7 through 7.1.0.

  1. 6.7.7
  2. 6.8.8
  3. 6.9.7
  4. 7.0.4
  5. 7.1.0

Signature, return type and hooks compared across 5 parsed releases.

About this page

Parsed data
Generated from the wordpress-develop 6.7.7 tag, from src/wp-includes/category-template.php, and regenerated for each WordPress release so it tracks the code rather than a snapshot of it.
Corrections
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