single.php with different look by category

Question

I'm trying to find a way to get my posts with different look depending on their category.

I have first tried to do it using the template hierarchy but it seems there is no pattern for the category posts. (ie single-cat-mycategory.php)

So then within single.php I tried the conditional tagging using is_category() but my understanding it's only working for the archive pages.

Finally, I'm now trying to use the is_single() conditional tagging where first I'm looking for all the posts corresponding to my category and pass it as a parameter of is_single()

In functions.php

function get_post_id_by_cat(){

 $args = [
        'post_type'     => 'post',
        'post_status'   => 'publish',
        'category_name' => 'my_category',
        ];
$cat_query = new WP_Query( $args );
if ($cat_query -> have_posts()){
        while ($cat_query -> have_posts()){
                $cat_query -> the_post();
                $post_ids[] = get_the_ID();

        }    
        wp_reset_postdata();
}

In single.php

$my_cat_posts = get_post_id_by_cat();

if (is_single($my_cat_posts)) {

                        while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();
      //do my stuff here
                        endwhile;
}

My first question is this in term of Wordpress design a good way to do this or is there a better way as my concern is mainly for performance, with this method.

If it's ok, My issue is that $post_ids is storing the data in a php object format and not an array so is_single() doesn't get the posts ids properly as parameter. And i don't get how I can get it converted to an array.

$post_ids[] = to_array(get_the_ID()); return

Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function to_array()

or $post_ids[] = (array)get_the_ID(); return each post ids stil has object but within a array like this:

array(8) {
  [0]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    int(5415)
  }…

or $post_ids[] = get_object_vars(get_the_ID()); return

get_object_vars() expects parameter 1 to be object, integer given

But if pass this array it does work properly:

$array = ['5415','5413','5411','5401'];

Hope this is clear enough,

Thanks for any input!

Matth.

Answer 1

Think what you need is in_category function ...... Please go through

https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/in_category/

and check whether it suits your needs ......

and one more filter single_template is there that you can check .

Answer 2

Thanks @Anoop D I found the solution I was looking at the begining when looking at [single_template][1] !

Here is the model I used to have a single-cat-mycat.php per category !

<?php
function get_custom_post_type_template($single_template) {
     global $post;

     if ($post->post_type == 'my_post_type') {
          $single_template = dirname( __FILE__ ) . '/post-type-template.php';
     }
     return $single_template;
}
add_filter( 'single_template', 'get_custom_post_type_template' );
?>

This issue is fix ! Now let's go to the next challenge :D 

Kindly

Matth