Getting category ID - Doesn't work on pages without breadcrumbs!

Question

Hi my issue is if I go to a product with the full url as in:

mysite.com/mycategory/myproduct

My code pulls back its top level category.

However, if I go to: mysite.com/myproduct

The product displays but with no breadcrumbs and my code to grab the category ID fails.

My code is:

<?php
    $category = Mage::registry('current_category');
    while ($category->getLevel() != 2) {
    $category = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($category->getParentId());
}
    $catid = $category->getId();
?>

I am unsure what to do do I need the change my code to work universally or? Ver 1.9.2.2

Answer 1

What category would you expect to see on this page? Certainly not myCategory? Or would you expect a different breadcrumb path of Home -> Product Name?

Either way to pull a "valid" category ID from the product you can go with something like

$category = Mage::registry('current_category');
$product = Mage::registry('current_product');
$catid = null;

if ($category instanceof Mage_Catalog_Model_Category) {
    while ($category->getLevel() != 2) {
        $category = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($category->getParentId());
    }
    $catid = $category->getId();
} else if ($product instanceof Mage_Catalog_Model_Product) {
    $categoryIds = $product->getCategoryIds();
    if (is_array($categoryIds) && count($categoryIds) >= 1) {
        $catid = $categoryIds[0];
    }
}

The above will attempt to get catid from the current_category. If we're on a PDP without a current_category then it will attempt to get the first valid category id from current_product.

Your above code also looks pretty inefficient (load within a loop of any kind is a definite no-no) but I can't see your full code to help refactoring.