simply php if statement

[Guest ldexterldesign]

hi guys,

 

fairly new to php, and it seems i've forgotten most of what i've learnt in the past sadly. looking to perk up a bit. i'll get straight to the point anyway. i'm working with wordpress and have a post category variable i need to detect the value of. depending on the value i need to generate a little bit of text to make up a class name to give the desired category styles.

 

what i'm working with:

        
<div class="post">
<h5 class="category">Thrown in the<?php the_category(', ') ?>scrapheap</h5>

 

what i'm trying out, but isn't working:

        
<div class="post<?php if (the_category == "design") {print "-design";}?>" id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
<h5 class="category">Thrown in the<?php the_category(', ') ?>scrapheap</h5>

 

can anybody point me in the right direction. i'm assuming maybe i just have some weary syntax somewhere? but not quite sure why the_category can get away without being $the_category atm? :S 

 

many thanks,

lewis

 

ps. the categories i want to detect for are 'art', 'design', 'development' and the classes i want to generate/complete accordingly are class="post-art", class="post-design", class="post-development" - hopefully that helps.

[triskelion69]

Hi Lewis,

 

Try this:

 

<?php
switch($the_category){
case "art":
$divClass="post-art";
break;
case "design":
$divClass="post-design";
break;
case "development":
$divClass="post-development";
break;
default:
$divClass="******A CLASS YOU KNOW EXISTS******";
}?>
<div class="<?=$divClass; ?>" id="post-<?=$the_ID(); ?>">
<h5 class="category">Thrown in the <?=$the_category; ?> scrapheap</h5>

 

I hope this is what you're after,

 

Triskelion

 

[Guest ldexterldesign]

hi mate,

 

thanks for the response. no luck unfortunately, although i'm sure we're getting somewhere now. i've made a few discoveries.

 

1) <?= isn't working. i'm simply getting more success from using <?php, so i'm sticking with that - is there a difference?

2) by adding an echo here i can get 'dog' class output. without the echo i can't, so i've left it in:

 

        <?php
switch($the_category){
case "art":
$divClass="post-art";
break;
case "design":
$divClass="post-design";
break;
case "development":
$divClass="post-development";
break;
default:
$divClass="dog";
}?>
        
<div class="<?php echo $divClass; ?>" id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>"> 

 

now i can get a class value out the other end i've looked at why i can't get the case values to activate. firstly are the case string values case sensitive? the category technically is 'Development' (with a capital 'D'). either way i've tried using 'Development' and 'development' as case values - no luck.

 

so this suggests, for me, the switch statement isn't taking in the proper variable is the first place; '$the_category' in the example. personally i think '$the_category' would be a list or array variable, after all 'the_category(', ')' in the xhtml output script is outputting one (or a list) of categories i could categorize a post under. this is confirmed when i publish a post under more than one category - it outputs more that one value i.e. art, development if i choose these two categories.

 

so i think i'm maybe looking to access the first category, or list item/array object in '$the_category' - i've tried using $the_category(0) and $the_category[0], but no luck.

 

if you think of anything else please shunt it my way. this really can't be that hard to solve 

 

lewis 

[TEENFRONT]

<? echo $var; ?> would be the correct way to output as far as im aware  i think <?= $var; ?> was depreciated.

[kenrbnsn]

The shortcut for echo "<?=" only works when short tags are enabled.

 

use

<?php echo 'xxxx' ?>

 

when you want to echo something.

 

Ken

[Guest ldexterldesign]

yea, cheers guys. i kinda predicted it could be shorthand for <?php echo. i think i need to get to grips with the basics before i revel in shortcuts

 

any thoughts on the problem at hand though?

 

best,

lewis