$category->getStoreId() returns the current store instead of the store that it actually belongs to

Question

I have a category 1 which belongs to store A and category 2 which belongs to store B. When I am in store A and run the query $category->getStoreId(), both categories returns A, and when I am in store B, both categories return B.

.....
\Magento\Catalog\Model\CategoryRepository $categoryRepository,
......

$categoryIds = $product->getCategoryIds();

foreach($categoryIds as $categoryId) {
   $category = $categoryRepository->get($categoryId);
   echo $category->getStoreId();
} 

I tried everything using categorycollection, categoryfactory, and categoryrepository. How do I get the store id of that category instead of current store id. FYI, setStore, setProductStoreId(), addStoreFilter etc, none of them worked

Answer 1

This is due to the fact that the store category do not exist on the other store. Actually it would have been more expected that it returns a null category.

This is mostly due to the fact that repositories will use the flat data if i'm not wrong. And the flat data won't be mapped as the category really do not exist in your store.

I would say this behaviour is normal what you are trying to achieve is a little out of the box; but not really uncommun. On my side when this happens i'm used to directly sql query database with a simple connection object depending on the information i need. This way you don't have to pass by the flat data and you can get what you need.

Not sure it's the best practice though...

Answer 2

After strenuous research, following has helped me achieve only specific store categories in multistore site.

$categoryIds = $product->getCategoryIds();
$collection = $this->categoryCollectionFactory->create()
            ->addAttributeToSelect(self::ATTRIBUTE_CODE)
            ->joinUrlRewrite()
            ->addFilter('store_id', $storeId)
            ->addAttributeToFilter('entity_id', $categoryIds);

joinurlRewrite and store_id filter are the key things here.