How to determine if a category is empty?

Question

Is there an existing function or call in which you can pass a category id to determine if the category has child posts?

MathSmath · Accepted Answer · 2011-01-25 23:12:03Z

up vote 2 down vote accepted

The get_term() function accepts a term id and a taxonomy slug. It returns an object that contains a "count" for that term.

$obj_term = get_term(123, 'your-taxonomy-slug');
echo $term->count;

I'm not aware of any utility function that just counts posts in a particular category.

answered Jan 25 '11 at 23:12

MathSmath
3,589615

	Thanks! I also thought about using $obj= get_posts('category=n'); if($obj) {//has child!}. Is one any more expensive than the other? – Scott B Jan 26 '11 at 0:08
	@Scott B - I think get_term() is probably faster. They both run DB queries, but get_posts() does it by initiating a new wp_query object and running the query method, which runs all kinds of logic and seems pretty roundabout for the info you're trying to get. If you want the fastest option, you might look at rolling your own utility function? It'd be pretty trivial to just run a COUNT query, I'd think. I'm actually pretty surprised there isn't a function for this in core! – MathSmath Jan 26 '11 at 0:32
	That works perfectly fine. I've got a "Related Posts" list at the bottom of my category landing pages, but since I allow the option of listing empty categories, I'm wrapping the div that holds the link list in this wrapper to check for child posts. – Scott B Jan 26 '11 at 2:49

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