How to get permalinks with category base working with sub-categories

1 comment

1. I was able to get this to work pretty easily actually. I am now able to have my category base in my permalinks. This allows me to now have URLs like:

   http://www.new1450.dev/industries/ {Main blog post only showing category selection}
   http://www.new1450.dev/industries/development/ {a parent category}
   http://www.new1450.dev/industries/development/parent-category-i/ {child of parent}
   http://www.new1450.dev/industries/development/parent-category-i/child-category-i/ {child of child}
   http://www.new1450.dev/industries/development/parent-category-i/child-category-i/some-cool-post/ {actual post}
   

   This should work for any level of category nesting.

   My Permalink settings:

   Custom Structure: /industries/%category%/%postname%/

   Category base: industries/. (/. is required as it prevents 404s for post)

   Code:

   /**
    * Fix 404 for permalinks using category_base
    */
   function permalinkWithCategoryBaseFix() {
       global $wp_query;
       // Only check on 404's
       if ( true === $wp_query->is_404) {
           $currentURI = !empty($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) ? trim($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], '/') : '';
           if ($currentURI) {
               $categoryBaseName = trim(get_option('category_base'), '/.'); // Remove / and . from base
               if ($categoryBaseName) {
                   // Perform fixes for category_base matching start of permalink custom structure
                   if ( substr($currentURI, 0, strlen($categoryBaseName)) == $categoryBaseName ) {
                       // Find the proper category
                       $childCategoryObject = get_category_by_slug($wp_query->query_vars['name']);
                       // Make sure we have a category
                       if (is_object($childCategoryObject)) {
                           $paged = ($wp_query->query_vars['paged']) ? $wp_query->query_vars['paged']: 1;
                           $wp_query->query(array(
                                                 'cat' => $childCategoryObject->term_id,
                                                 'paged'=> $paged
                                            )
                           );
                           // Set our accepted header
                           status_header( 200 ); // Prevents 404 status
                       }
                       unset($childCategoryObject);
                   }
               }
               unset($categoryBaseName);
           }
           unset($currentURI);
       }
   }
   
   add_action('template_redirect', 'permalinkWithCategoryBaseFix');
   

   I originally had:

   $childCategoryObject = get_category_by_slug( ((!empty($wp_query->query_vars['page']) && $wp_query->query_vars['page'] > 1) ? $wp_query->query_vars['category_name'] : $wp_query->query_vars['name']) );
   

   in place of:

   $childCategoryObject = get_category_by_slug($wp_query->query_vars['name']);
   

   but it seems that check wasn’t necessary. I left this comment in case I had it for a reason I couldn’t remember…

   Also, I had issues with my default category pagination… A quick search returns many people with the same issue (won’t go past page 2) so I added this fix too. I found this fix in a WordPress plugin: Category pagination fix. I updated the code and the fix is below:

   /**
    * Fix the problem where next/previous of page number buttons are broken of posts in a category when the custom permalink
    * The problem is that with a url like this:
    * /categoryname/page/2
    * the 'page' looks like a post name, not the keyword "page"
    */
   function fixCategoryPagination($queryString) {
       if (isset($queryString['name']) && $queryString['name'] == 'page' && isset($queryString['page'])) {
           unset($queryString['name']);
           // 'page' in the query_string looks like '/2', so i'm exploding it
           list($delim, $page_index) = explode('/', $queryString['page']);
           $queryString['paged'] = $page_index;
       }
       return $queryString;
   }
   
   add_filter('request', 'fixCategoryPagination');
   

   Note: It should be noted, the pagination fix was only necessary on the parent categories. The child categories had no issue with pagination.

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