Display only one result from “get_the_category_list”

Question

I'd like get_the_category_list to only display one or two categories instead of all the categories associated with the post. Haven't been able to find any results.

<?php echo get_the_category_list(); ?>

Any help would be appreciated

Answer 1

Quick idea would be to pass some simple separator like comma and cut from the start of result till it.

But I think that if you want better control on output it would make more sense to use level deeper get_the_category() function and build markup yourself.

Answer 2

If you want to limit get_the_category to any number you can use break;

For example if you want to limit echoing a category + link to show say only 5 categories.

     $i = 0;
      foreach((get_the_category()) as $cat) {
        echo '<a href="'.get_category_link($cat->cat_ID).'"> | ' . $cat->cat_name . '</a>';
        if (++$i == 5) break;
      } 

Answer 3

This worked. Found in http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/get_the_category

<?php
$category = get_the_category(); 
echo $category[0]->cat_name;
?>