Problem with calling custom function in a foreach loop

Question

I have a custom function in functions.php that excludes specific category from the category list:

function incomplete_cat_list() {
      $first_time = 1;
      foreach((get_the_category()) as $category) {
       if ($category->cat_name != 'Category Name') {
         if ($first_time == 1) {
          echo '<a class="cat-list" href="' . get_category_link( 
          $category->term_id ) . '" title="' . sprintf( __( "See all %s" ), 
          $category->name ) . '" ' . '>'  . $category->name.'</a>';
          $first_time = 0;
         } 
      else {
           }
       }
     }
}

I would like to use it in related posts foreach loop, but I'm not sure how to do it... Here's the code for displaying related posts by tags or category:

        <?php

            $max_articles = 4;  // How many articles to display

            echo '<div id="related-articles" class="relatedposts"><h3>Related articles</h3>';

            $cnt = 0;

            $article_tags = get_the_tags();
            $tags_string = '';
            if ($article_tags) {
                foreach ($article_tags as $article_tag) {
                    $tags_string .= $article_tag->slug . ',';
                }
            }

            $tag_related_posts = get_posts('exclude=' . $post->ID . '&numberposts=' . $max_articles . '&tag=' . $tags_string);

            if ($tag_related_posts) {
                foreach ($tag_related_posts as $related_post) {
                    $cnt++; 
                    echo '<div class="child-' . $cnt . '">';
                            echo '<a href="' . get_permalink($related_post->ID) . '">';
                            echo get_the_post_thumbnail($related_post->ID);
                            echo $related_post->post_title . '</a>';
                            echo incomplete_cat_list;
                        echo '</div>';
                }
            }


            // Only if there's not enough tag related articles,
            // we add some from the same category

            if ($cnt < $max_articles) {

                $article_categories = get_the_category($post->ID);
                $category_string = '';
                foreach($article_categories as $category) { 
                    $category_string .= $category->cat_ID . ',';
                }

                $cat_related_posts = get_posts('exclude=' . $post->ID . '&numberposts=' . $max_articles . '&category=' . $category_string);

                if ($cat_related_posts) {
                    foreach ($cat_related_posts as $related_post) {
                        $cnt++; 
                        if ($cnt > $max_articles) break;
                        echo '<div class="child-' . $cnt . '">';
                            echo '<a href="' . get_permalink($related_post->ID) . '">';
                            echo get_the_post_thumbnail($related_post->ID);
                            echo $related_post->post_title . '</a>';
                            echo incomplete_cat_list;
                        echo '</div>';
                    }
                }
            }

            echo '</div>';

        ?>

How to call the custom function from functions.php inside above loop?

Answer 1

First you need to pass the post_id to this function to use the post_id inside the get_the_category($post_id)

function incomplete_cat_list($post_id = '') {
    global $post;
    $post_id = ($post_id) ? $post_id : $post->ID;
    $first_time = 1;
    $categories = get_the_category($post_id);
    foreach($categories as $category) {
        if ($category->cat_name != 'Category Name') {
            if ($first_time == 1) {
                echo '<a class="cat-list" href="' . get_category_link( 
                $category->term_id ) . '" title="' . sprintf( __( "See all %s" ), 
                $category->name ) . '" ' . '>'  . $category->name.'</a>';
                $first_time = 0;
            }
            else {
            }
        }
    }
}

This function already echo so you don't need to echo it again. So you should call it like this.

incomplete_cat_list($related_post->ID);

Another thing if you want to stop the loop after you get the first category instead of using this $first_time variable just use break; to stop the loop.

Answer 2

@Shibi, for your tip about using break - this is how the function should look?

// Exclude category name from carousel
function incomplete_cat_list($post_id = '') {
global $post;
$post_id = ($post_id) ? $post_id : $post->ID;
$categories = get_the_category($post_id);
foreach($categories as $category) {
    if ($category->cat_name != 'Category name') {
            echo '<a class="cat-list" href="' . 
            get_category_link( 
            $category->term_id ) . '" title="' . sprintf( __( "See all in %s" ), 
            $category->name ) . '" ' . '>'  . $category->name.'</a>';
            break;
    }
}
}