need PHP help for get_the_category

I get the feeling I’m not understanding your question. But I’ll take a stab anyway.

Is this what you’re trying to do? (with extra spacing for clarity)

<a href="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>/category/<?php echo $cat->category_nicename; ?>">

<?php echo $cat->cat_name; ?>

</a>

Or is that what you meant by doing it “hardcoded?”

I’ll try again…
Here is the code in the Codex:

<?php
$cat = get_the_category(); $cat = $cat[0]; echo $cat->cat_name;
?>

If a post is in more than one cat – it will display only the first one and as NOT a link (that’s the nature of this template tag)

Now, if I use the same tag twice in the Loop, once with [0] and the second time with [1] it will display
1. the first cat
2. the other cat the post is in.

What I want/would like: to make the displayed category names (in both cases) a link to the category (archive), as the_category would do.

Is it clearer?

Thanks for trying ??

Something like this, where $which is an integer for the category you want?

<?php
function one_category($which=0){
  $cat = get_the_category();
  $cat = $cat[ $which ];
  $link = '<a href="' . get_bloginfo('url') . '/category/' . $cat->category_nicename . '">';
  $link .= $cat->cat_name;
  $link .= '</a>';
  echo $link;
}

one_category( 0 ); // a link to the first cat
one_category( 1 ); // a link to the second cat

?>

If I’m still misunderstanding, then I’ll let somebody else have a try.

<?php
$cat = get_the_category(); $cat = $cat[0];
?>
<a href="<?php echo get_category_link($cat);?>"><?php echo $cat->cat_name; ?></a>

…???…

mdi, it’s posts like yours that remind me that even though I know a bit of PHP, I sure don’t know all the functions available in WP. I’m feeling a bit daft right now.

But note that get_category_link() needs the cat ID as an argument, so that portion of your code should say

<?php echo get_category_link($cat->cat_ID);?>

Not exactly but it helped me a lot! Thanks.

So, here is what I ended up:
1st instance:

<?php
$cat = get_the_category(); $cat = $cat[0]; echo '<a href="' . get_bloginfo('url') . '/category/' . $cat->category_nicename . '">';
echo $cat->cat_name;
echo  '</a>';
?>

…other stuff here…
2nd instance:

<?php
$cat = get_the_category(); $cat = $cat[1]; echo '<a href="' . get_bloginfo('url') . '/category/' . $cat->category_nicename . '">';
echo $cat->cat_name;
echo  '</a>';
?>

It can be used for example to display one category before the post content and another cat after the content.

Thanks again, Adam.

no probalo

Oops…
I just noticed the code posted by mdi – thanks!
That’s simpler and nicer than mine and it does the same ??

The code below worked for me too:

<?php echo get_category_link($cat=#);?> (# is the cat number)