Exclude parent category from child category URL if parent category is empty

Question

My category/subcategory relationships are structured from a cosmetic point of view for the menu:

Root->Parent (no products)->Cosmetic Category (no products)-> actual subcategory (products)

I want my URL for the actual subcategories to exclude the Cosmetic Category. The cosmetic category will always exist at level 2 (if root is level 0). I am trying to implement a check that if the parent category has 0 products and is level 2 then to exclude it from the URL. I have been unsuccessful so far. Any recommendations? Thanks.

Answer 1

I think one thing you could do would be to work with the function getCategoryRequestPath in the class Mage_Catalog_Model_Url. In this function there is a check to add the $parentPath if at this point you check to see if the parent has products and then exclude the path if there are no products.

Note: be aware that making this check will have a knock-on effect on performance