Filtering category collection producing incorrect behaviour with flat catalog enabled

Question

I have some code to perform a basic search of categories. It works by searching the category name and description - attributes that are both core.

The code I have is as follows:

$_categories = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->getCollection()  
    ->addAttributeToSelect('name')
    ->addAttributeToSelect('description')
    ->addAttributeToSelect('associated_brand')
    ->addAttributeToSelect('image')
    ->setPageSize(12)
    ->setCurPage(1)
    ->addAttributeToFilter('level',['gt' => 2])
    ->addAttributeToFilter('is_active',['eq'=>true])
    ->addAttributeToFilter(
        [
            ['attribute' => 'name', 'like' => '%'.$searchterm.'%'],
            ['attribute' => 'description', 'like' => '%'.$searchterm.'%']
        ]
    )->load();

Prior to enabling the flat catalog for categories, it returned the expected results - any categories that had a match for the search term in their name or description.

With the flat catalog enabled, the name or description search does not work. If I output the underlying collection query, it is as follows:

SELECT `main_table`.`entity_id`, `main_table`.`level`, `main_table`.`path`, `main_table`.`position`, `main_table`.`is_active`, `main_table`.`is_anchor`, `main_table`.`name`, `main_table`.`description`, `main_table`.`associated_brand`, `main_table`.`image` 
FROM `catalog_category_flat_store_1` AS `main_table` 
WHERE (level > 2) AND (is_active = '1')

As can be seen from the above, the name and description clause are missing completely.

I've checked the generated catalog_category_flat_store_1 table and the fields are present there.

Any ideas why Magento is dropping these filters from the query, only when using the flat catalog?

Answer 1

In \Mage_Catalog_Model_Resource_Category_Flat_Collection::addAttributeToFilter

public function addAttributeToFilter($attribute, $condition = null)
{
    if (!is_string($attribute) || $condition === null) {
        return $this;
    }

    return $this->addFieldToFilter($attribute, $condition);
}

It seems not possible to have an array in first parameter. You need to get the Select object and do your query manually when flat is enabled.

Hope this help,