How do i get the base parent category name?

Question

this is my code:

    $product_id = Mage::registry('current_product')->getId();
    $product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load($product_id);
    $cats = $product->getCategoryIds();
    foreach ($cats as $category_id) {
        $parentId = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($category_id)->getParentId();
        $parent = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($parentId);
        echo $parent->getName(); // getting the parent category, but not the base category(first level)
        $_cat = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($category_id);
        echo  $_cat->getName(); // getting the category
    }

I have multiple level of categories. I want to get the first level of category using one of the subcategories id. How can i do that ?

Answer 1

Try this:

$product_id = Mage::registry('current_product')->getId();
$product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load($product_id);
$cats = $product->getCategoryIds();
foreach ($cats as $category_id) {
    $category = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($category_id);
    //each category has a path attribute
    $path = $category->getPath(); //should look like 1/3/14/23/55.
    //split the path by slash
    $pathParts = explode('/', $path);
    if (count($pathParts) == 3) {
        //it means the category is already a top level category
        echo $category->getName();
    }
    elseif (isset($pathParts[2])) {
        $topCategory = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($pathParts[2]);
        echo $topCategory->getName();
    }
}

You can see here more details about what the category path means. (near the end).