Magento retrieve children from specific category - php

Question

I have a problem with closing my li's and ul's at the correct moment.
With the code we have we retrieve all childeren of a specific categorie in the magento shop.
Now the problem is that i want to divide all children in lists. So we can have them sorted by category -> sub-category -> sub-sub category. I want my structure to be;
<ul>
<li>
<a>Head Child</a>
<ul>
<li>
<a>Sub child</a>
<ul>
<li><a>Sub sub child</a></li>
<li><a>Sub sub child</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<a>Head Child</a>
<ul>
<li>
<a>Sub child</a>
<ul>
<li><a>Sub sub child</a></li>
<li><a>Sub sub child</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
The output im getting now is
<ul>
<a title="View the products for the " href="#">Head child</a>
<li class="sub_cat">
<a title="View the products for the " href="#">Sub child</a>
</li>
<li class="sub_cat">
<a title="View the products for the " href="#">Sub sub child</a>
</li>
</ul>
This is our php code;
<?php
$cat = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load(9);
$subcats = $cat->getChildren();
foreach(explode(',',$subcats) as $subCatid)
{
$_category = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($subCatid);
if($_category->getIsActive()) {
echo '<ul>'.$_category->getName().'';
$sub_cat = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($_category->getId());
$sub_subcats = $sub_cat->getChildren();
foreach(explode(',',$sub_subcats) as $sub_subCatid)
{
$_sub_category = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($sub_subCatid);
if($_sub_category->getIsActive()) {
echo '<li class="sub_cat">'.$_sub_category->getName().'';
$sub_sub_cat = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($sub_subCatid);
$sub_sub_subcats = $sub_sub_cat->getChildren();
foreach(explode(',',$sub_sub_subcats) as $sub_sub_subCatid)
{
$_sub_sub_category = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($sub_sub_subCatid);
if($_sub_sub_category->getIsActive()) {
echo '<li class="sub_cat">'.$_sub_sub_category->getName().'';
}
}
}
}
echo '</ul>';
}
}
?>

Answer 1

You should consider using recursive function here
$cat = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load(9);
$html = '';
$html = getSubCategoriesHTML($cat, $html);
function getSubCategoriesHTML($cat, $html) {
$html .= ''.$cat->getName().'';
$html .= '<ul>';
$subcats = $cat->getChildren();
foreach(explode(',',$subcats) as $subCatid) {
$_category = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($subCatid);
if($_category->getIsActive()) {
$html .= '<li>';
$html .= getSubCategoriesHTML($_category, $html);
$html .= '</li>;
}
}
$html .= '</ul>';
return $html;
}
You can add this function in a helper or in your category model.
I haven't tested it at all so it may not work correctly. But I hope it can help you.