How to list child categories in custom category template?

Question

I'm trying to create a custom category template that will display a list of the current category's child categories. Besides the name and link to the category I also want to add a thumbnail and the category description. I tried the following code but it didn't return anything:

<?php 

$catid = get_category(get_query_var( 'cat' ));

$termchildren = get_term_children( $catid, 'category' );

echo '<ul>';

foreach( $termchildren as $cat ) {

$term = get_term_by( 'id', '$cat', 'category' );

echo '<li>'.$term->name.'</li>';

}

?>

I've left out the other parts of the html list at this stage as I'm just trying to get it to work and will add them in later.

Answer 1

This piece of code will return you the child categories of a parent-

$cat = get_category( get_query_var( 'cat' ) );
$cat_id = $cat->cat_ID;
$child_categories=get_categories(
    array( 'parent' => $cat_id )
);

Just pass the category id to $cat_id variable which children you want. After that you can design or print those as you want. Example-

foreach ( $child_categories as $child ) {
    // Here I'm showing as a list...
    echo '<li>'.$child ->cat_name.'</li>';
}

Hope this is gonna help.