category template if statement for cat children

if ( is_category() ) {
$cat = get_query_var(‘cat’);
$child = get_category($cat);
echo ‘parent is ‘ . $child->category_parent;
}

Thank you MichaelH, but would you mid explaining what this does to make it work, and how I would need to change it to work with my template files? I only understand some basic php and I’m not too sure how some of those wp functions work. Such as, would I need to specify the parent cat somewhere in that statement, and where would I tell it what template.php file to load? Thanks again for supplying the code, and I hope you don’t mind explaining it a bit.

if a category query
$cat is the category being queried
get the category information for $cat
echo the parent category for $cat (you would leave this line out)

so you would test something like

<?php
if ( is_category() ) {
  $cat = get_query_var('cat');
  $child = get_category($cat);
  if ( 1 == $child->category_parent ) {
    //do your include thing
  }
}
?>

thanks for the explanation. although I’m still not able to get it to work. in your code I changed == to != and it works with category 1. but it is still not detecting all the child categories. I’m trying to play around with it, but I don’t know how far I will actually get. if you find the time or desire to help me out any further, I’d appreciate it. Otherwise, thanks so much for all your help this far, I know I’m on the right track.

This worked just fine for me in category.php using the WordPress Default theme as long as category 1 is the PARENT of the current category being queried.

<?php
if ( is_category() ) {
  $cat = get_query_var('cat');
  $child = get_category($cat);
  if ( 1 == $child->category_parent ) {
    include(TEMPLATEPATH . "/cat1include.php");
  }
}
?>

as long as category 1 is the PARENT of the current category being queried.

Oh I’m so glad you said that. It made me realize I needed to first define the template for parent category 1 before I used your code to get the children. So I added this before your code.

if (is_category('1'))
	{include "cat_showcase.php";}

Before I did that, I was trying to view category 1 before I tried to view the child categories and it wasn’t showing the page. Now I can view cat 1 before choosing a child cat.

Thanks for all your help, and I hope I don’t run into any other roadblocks.

Or another ‘version’

<?php
// if a category view see if category is id=1 or 'direct child' of 1
if ( is_category() ) {
  $cat = get_query_var('cat');
  $args = array(
    'include' => $cat,
	  'hide_empty' => 0
	  );
  $categories = get_categories($args);
  if ( ($cat == 1) || ($categories[0]->category_parent == 1) ) {
    echo 'you are viewing cat 1 or one of the DIRECT child';
  }
}
?>

What if we where talking about a single post? Like if a post was in some category or that category’s child? I’ve tried to use in_category instead of is_category but no results…