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I'm working with a couple of plugins that ask for a list of category IDs to include/exclude.

When I go to the categories section and select "Edit" I don't see an ID field listed on the page, though I see all the other details. Since I will be relaying this information onto other users, how can I find the category ID for them?

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2 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

there are some plugins that reveal the ID's on the admin side like WP Show IDs

and by code like this:

                  //as dropdown
$categories=  get_categories(array('hide_empty' => 0,'taxonomy' => 'category')); 
 echo '<select>';
  foreach ($categories as $category) {

    $option = '<option value="'.$category->category_id.'">';
    $option .= $category->cat_name;
    $option .= '</option>';
    echo $option;
  echo '</select>';

  //or just print the categories names  by ids like this


  foreach ($categories as $category) {

    echo $category->category_id;
    echo $category->cat_name;

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That plugin is perfect! Since the end user isn't tech saavy, I can simply add it to the site. Thanks! –  Dillie-O Jan 18 '11 at 16:47
glad to help, any time :) –  Bainternet Jan 18 '11 at 17:11
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Showing the IDs is pretty simple, you need to hook onto the table heading and columns for that taxonomy's management page.

I previously discussed this in a support topic here.

First hook onto the taxonomy table heading and add the new heading into the columns array.

function category_id_head( $columns ) {
    $columns['term_id'] = __('ID');
    return $columns;

add_filter( 'manage_edit-category_columns', 'category_id_head' );

Then hook onto the taxonomy table rows and output the term IDs.

function category_id_row( $output, $column, $term_id ){
    if( $column != 'term_id')
        return $output;
    return $term_id;

add_filter( 'manage_category_custom_column', 'category_id_row', 10, 3 );

You can of course always use a plugin, but for such a small amount of code that seems a bit silly.

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