Get custom category attribute value

Question

I have created a custom category attribute using this tutorial http://gauss-development.com/blog/tutorials/adding-custom-category-attributes-magento/.

<?php
$installer = $this;
$installer->startSetup();
$attribute = array(
 'type' => 'text',
 'label' => 'Extra Title',
 'input' => 'text',
 'global' => Mage_Catalog_Model_Resource_Eav_Attribute::SCOPE_GLOBAL,
 'visible' => true,
 'required' => false,
 'user_defined' => true,
 'default' => "",
 'group' => "General Information"
);
$installer->addAttribute('catalog_category', 'cat_extra_title', $attribute);
$installer->endSetup();
?>

I have checked that the attribute is stored in eav_attribute table normally, but I can't get it's value.

$category = Mage::registry('current_category');
if ($category){
 $value = $category->getData('cat_extra_title'); //value is empty
}

Any ideas?

• Qaisar Satti: which page you are showing the value?
• Manikandan: First you try to print the values of the current category by using var_dump($category->getData()). Whether the values of 'cat_extra_title' is retrieving or not.
• zekia: @Manikandan there are values retrieved but the 'cat_extra_title' value is not included in them. Why?
• Manikandan: try $category->getCatExtraTitle()
• Manikandan: Can you print the values and share the link

Answer 1

After testing many possible solutions, this was the only one that worked for me:

$cat_extra_title = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($category->getId())->getData('cat_extra_title');

• Neklo.com: It's actually not a good practice to call "->load" every time when you need just one attribute. First of all - if you have Category Flat enabled (check in System - Configuration - Catalog) - do a reindex of Flat Category and check if column for your attribute appeared in flat table. And second - check my reply below
• Rob D. A.: I was looking for something like this today and your solution works. Thanx

Answer 2

when adding new attribute for Category or Product, we need to put this attribute in Attribute Set and Attribute Group. So your code should look like this:

$installer->addAttribute('catalog_category', 'cat_extra_title', array(
 'type' => 'text',
 'label' => 'Extra Title',
 'input' => 'text',
 'global' => Mage_Catalog_Model_Resource_Eav_Attribute::SCOPE_GLOBAL,
 'required' => false,
 'default' => '',
 'user_defined' => true,
 'default' => "",
));
$entityTypeId = $installer->getEntityTypeId('catalog_category');
$attributeSetId = $installer->getDefaultAttributeSetId($entityTypeId);
$attributeGroupId = $installer->getDefaultAttributeGroupId($entityTypeId, $attributeSetId);
$installer->addAttributeToGroup(
 $entityTypeId,
 $attributeSetId,
 $attributeGroupId,
 'cat_extra_title'
);

Answer 3

I ran into the same issue today. I created a new custom category attribute (an int/select one), and I would try this, in list.phtml, and get an empty value:

$value = Mage::registry('current_category')->getData('my_custom_Attribute');

However, this was solved by re-indexing catalog_category_flat; with n98:

n98-magerun.phar index:reindex catalog_category_flat

Now, the same code produces the value, so long as a value exists for the category (if the value is empty/NULL, then, of course, it will still produce a NULL value).