Show matching categories in search page

my current search only shows POSTS as results.

/?s=george

My site has categories for George Clooney, George R.R. Martin etc. How do I get a list of categories that match the search term to show at the top of the results page?

I have tried this:

<?php 
$search_query = get_search_query();

$term = get_term_by( 'name', $search_query, 'category' );
if ( !empty( $terms ) && !is_wp_error( $terms ) ){
    echo "<ul>";
    foreach ( $terms as $term ) {
    echo "<li>" . $term->name . "</li>"; 
    }
    echo "</ul>";
}
;?> 

But I don't get any output

my current search only shows POSTS as results.

http://newslines.org/?s=george

My site has categories for George Clooney, George R.R. Martin etc. How do I get a list of categories that match the search term to show at the top of the results page?

I have tried this:

<?php 
$search_query = get_search_query();

$term = get_term_by( 'name', $search_query, 'category' );
if ( !empty( $terms ) && !is_wp_error( $terms ) ){
    echo "<ul>";
    foreach ( $terms as $term ) {
    echo "<li>" . $term->name . "</li>"; 
    }
    echo "</ul>";
}
;?> 

But I don't get any output

• categories
• search

Share Improve this question asked Aug 23, 2014 at 19:44 Mark DevlinMark Devlin 3911 silver badge1010 bronze badges 2

• Do you want to show only categories or categories and posts? – gmazzap Commented Aug 24, 2014 at 4:05
• I want to show matching categories first, then matching posts below. I already have the matching posts code. – Mark Devlin Commented Aug 24, 2014 at 16:46

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2 Answers 2

Sorted by: Reset to default 0

Essentially what you need is show the categories the current queried posts belong. I'll post here a function that take as argument a taaxonomy (or an array of taxonomies) and return all the terms in that (those) taxonomy(ies) that are assigned to all queried posts.

function queried_posts_terms( $taxonomies = 'category' ) {
  global $wp_query, $wpdb;
  if ( empty( $wp_query->posts ) ) return FALSE;
  $ids = wp_list_pluck( $wp_query->posts, 'ID' );
  $taxonomies = array_filter( (array) $taxonomies, function( $tax ) {
    if ( is_string( $tax ) ) {
      $tax = sanitize_title( $tax );
      return taxonomy_exists( $tax ) ? esc_sql( $tax ) : NULL;
    }
  } );
  if ( empty( $taxonomies ) ) return FALSE;
  $sql = "SELECT t.name, t.slug, t.term_group, tt.*
    FROM {$wpdb->terms} t
    INNER JOIN {$wpdb->term_taxonomy} tt ON t.term_id = tt.term_id
    INNER JOIN {$wpdb->term_relationships} tr ON tt.term_taxonomy_id = tr.term_taxonomy_id
    WHERE tr.object_id IN (" . implode( ', ', $ids ) . ")
    AND tt.taxonomy IN ('" . implode( "', '", $taxonomies ) . "')
    GROUP BY t.term_id";
  return $wpdb->get_results( $sql );
}

Once you have this function in your functions.php (or in an active plugin) in your template, propably search.php just use:

if ( is_search() ) {
  $cats = queried_posts_terms( 'category' );
  echo ! empty( $cats ) ? '<ul>' : '';
  foreach( $cats as $cat ) {
    printf( '<li><a href="%s">%s</a></li>', get_term_link($cat), esc_html($cat->name) );
  }
  echo ! empty( $cats ) ? '</ul>' : '';
}

You can edit your search.php file to essentially run multiple search loops, like this...

    global $query_string;

    $query_args = explode("&", $query_string);
    $search_query = array();

    foreach($query_args as $key => $string) {
        $query_split = explode("=", $string);
        $search_query[$query_split[0]] = urldecode($query_split[1]);
    } // foreach

    $first_args = $search_query;

    // set up your additional query parameters
    // I just used a sample of only getting a certain category, but you get the idea

    $first_args['cat'] = 162;
    $first_args['orderby'] = 'date';

    $first_search = new WP_Query($first_args);

    // Do your loop output stuff here

   endwhile;
   wp_reset_query();

Basically what you're doing is grabbing the query string (search string), and running a custom WP_Query using your additional parameters. After you run the first custom query to get matching categories, you can just run an additional query using the original $query_string.

I know that doesn't do EXACTLY what you want but it should give you the starting point to make it happen. I'm happy to help if you have any further questions.