random display categories - change url

Question

This part of my script runs WordPress categories and displays them in a random order.

The problem I'm having is that the url is based upon the categories ID There's one category that should go to a different page if clicked in stead of the categories page.

So I created a variable and kicked in the url. Created a if-statement to see when the $cat_id is loaded and then change it.

But it only outputs the url multiple times (every found category)

What can it be?

$category_link = get_category_link( $cat_id );
$custom_link = get_option( 'home' ).'/sub/sub-sub';
echo '
    <div class="carousel_items">
        <div class="category_image">
            <a href="'.($cat_id == 5) ? esc_url($custom_link) : esc_url( $category_link ).'">
                <img src="'.get_bloginfo('template_directory').'/images/svg/'.$cat_id.'.svg" />
            </a>
        </div>
   </div>';

Answer 1

As you are concatenating the result to a href you must wrap the ifelse statement inside another set of parentheses so the result is calculated first and then returned:

<a href="'.(($cat_id == 5) ? esc_url($custom_link) : esc_url($category_link)).'">