wppaste
WordPress

wp_create_category( string $category_name, int $category_parent = 0 ): int

Since
2.0.0
Source
wp-admin/includes/taxonomy.php:55
Adds a new category to the database if it does not already exist.

Compatibility

WordPress
since 2.0.0
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.

Parameters

$category_namestring
Category name.
$category_parentintoptional
ID of parent category.Default: 0

Return value

int
The ID of category term on success, or zero on failure.

Performance profile

How much work a call to wp_create_category() 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

Touches nothing outside its own arguments.

Scaling
Constant

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

Instructions
10–14

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 one call costs · 2 distinct outcomes

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

WhenInstructionsCalls it makes
always10category_exists()
always14category_exists(), cat_name()

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, 10–14 executed per call, 1 branch. 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

Used by · 1

Source code

View on Trac View on GitHub 

function wp_create_category( $category_name, $category_parent = 0 ) {	$id = category_exists( $category_name, $category_parent );	if ( $id ) {		return (int) $id;	} 	return wp_insert_category(		array(			'cat_name'        => $category_name,			'category_parent' => $category_parent,		)	);}

Changelog

Introduced in 2.0.0. 3 changes between 6.7.7 and 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.

7.0.4
Parameter $category_name added.verified against source
7.0.4
Parameter $cat_name removed.verified against source
7.0.4
Return type changed from int|WP_Error to int.verified against source
2.0.0
Introduced.from the docblock

About this page

Parsed data
Generated from the wordpress-develop 7.1.0 tag, from src/wp-admin/includes/taxonomy.php, and regenerated for each WordPress release so it tracks the code rather than a snapshot of it.
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