Wordpress Customizer: Dropdown with Category output

Question

I wrote the following lines of code. It shows a dropdown menu with all available Wordpress categorys in the Wordpress customizer and can output the category slug. But instead of the slug I want to output the category id. Does anyone have an idea how to realize that?

$categories = get_categories();

$cats = array();
$i = 0;
foreach($categories as $category){
    if($i==0){
        $default = $category->slug;
        $i++;
    }
    $cats[$category->slug] = $category->name;
}

$wp_customize->add_setting('wptimes_homepage_featured_category', array(
    'default'        => $default
));

$wp_customize->add_control(new WP_Customize_Control($wp_customize, 'wptimes_homepage_featured_category', array(
    'label' => 'Hervorgehobene Kategorie',
    'description' => 'Wähle hier die Kategorie aus, die du auf der Startseite hervorheben möchtest.',
    'section' => 'wptimes_homepage',
    'settings' => 'wptimes_homepage_featured_category',
    'type'    => 'select',
    'choices' => $cats
)));

Answer 1

In your foreach loop just do a quick print_r($category) to see all available options.

Than you will see that you can use $category->term_id to get the ID of the term/category, instead of $category->slug.

So for example, by using your code from above:

$categories = get_categories();

$cats = array();
$i = 0;

foreach( $categories as $category ) {

    // uncomment to see all $category data
    #print_r($category);

    if( $i == 0 ){

        $default = $category->term_id;
        $i++;

    }
    $cats[$category->term_id] = $category->name;
} 

print_r($cats);
// Prints for example: Array ( [12] => Child-Cat [2] => Parent-Cat [1] => Uncategorized ) 

Answer 2

I have a solution to this

1. First create section

// FRONT Page Settings settings.
$wp_customize->add_section(
  'betacoders_theme_front_page_options',
  array(
    'title'       => __('📝 - Front Page Settings ', 'betacoders'),
    'capability'  => 'edit_theme_options',
    'description' => __('FRONT Page Layout Options', 'betacoders'),
    'priority'    => 2,
  )
);

//  ==================================
//  = Featured Categories SELECTOR   =
//  ==================================
$wp_customize->add_setting('featured_post', array(
  'capability' => 'edit_theme_options',
  'type'       => 'option',
));

// get categories list
$categories = get_categories(array(
  'orderby' => 'name',
  'order'   => 'ASC',
  'hide_empty'  => 0,
  // 'parent'  => 0,
  // 'hierarchical' => true
));
$cat_ids = array_map(function ($el) {
  return $el->cat_ID;
}, $categories);

$cat_names = array_map(function ($el) {
  return $el->cat_name;
}, $categories);

$wp_customize->add_control('mys_featured_post_ctrl', [
  'label' => 'Featured Post from Category',
  'description' => 'Featured Post from Category',
  'section'    => 'betacoders_theme_front_page_options',
  'settings' => 'featured_post',
  // 'type' => 'select',
  'type'        => 'checkbox',
  'choices' => array() + array_combine($cat_ids, $cat_names) // combines all categories data
]);

Answer 3

I have another solution

<?php
function get_categories_select()
{
  $teh_cats = get_categories();
  $results = [];

  $count = count($teh_cats);
  for ($i = 0; $i < $count; $i++) {
    if (isset($teh_cats[$i]))
      $results[$teh_cats[$i]->slug] = $teh_cats[$i]->name;
    else
      $count++;
  }
  return $results;
}
$wp_customize->add_setting('featured_post_1', array(
  'capability' => 'edit_theme_options',
  'type'       => 'option',
));
$wp_customize->add_control('betacoders_featured_post_2', [
  'label' => 'Featured Post from Category 2 ',
  'description' => 'Featured Post from Category 2 ',
  'section'    => 'betacoders_theme_front_page_options',
  'settings' => 'featured_post_1',
  'type' => 'select',
  // 'type'        => 'checkbox',
  'choices' => get_categories_select(),
]);
?>