How to Order Categories by Most Recently Updated

15th Jan 2011 | Posted by reza | 19 Comments

WordPress has standard functions that are part of it’s core for displaying data such as lists of blog categories or pages. To display categories, it has wp_list_categories function, where You can order the categories by ID, name, slug, count or term_group.

How to Order Category by Most Recently Updated

Ok, I want more option for ordering the categories, I want the categories ordered by most recently updated. Most recently updated I mean, category that has the latest post will display first in the list.

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Here’s the code to perform this task :



		<?php 
			$cat_array = array();
			$args=array(
			  'post_type' => 'post',
			  'post_status' => 'publish',
			  'posts_per_page' => 20,
			  'caller_get_posts'=> 1
			  );
			$my_query = null;
			$my_query = new WP_Query($args);
			if( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
			  while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post();
				$cat_args=array('orderby' => 'none');
				$cats = wp_get_post_terms( $post->ID , 'category', $cat_args);
				foreach($cats as $cat) {
				  $cat_array[$cat->term_id] = $cat->term_id;
				}
			  endwhile;
			}
			if ($cat_array) {
			  foreach($cat_array as $cat) {
				$category = get_term_by('ID',$cat, 'category');
				echo '<a href="' . esc_attr(get_term_link($category, 'category')) . '" title="' . sprintf( __( "View all posts in %s" ), $category->name ) . '" ' . '>' . $category->name.'</a>'.'<br />';
			  }
			}
			wp_reset_query();
		?>

Put the code in wherever place You want to display this list of category in your theme

Credit:
Thanks to jahsko and MichaelH from WordPress.org

10 Comments to “How to Order Categories by Most Recently Updated”

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REZA says:

January 28, 2011 at 18:09

Thanks…Good…I love u Reza :-*

Reply
- reza says:
  
  January 29, 2011 at 00:13
  
  I love You too my brother,
  
  no-homo
  
  Reply
Dee says:

March 15, 2011 at 08:36

Thanks so much for this! How do we get it to show the 5 most recently updated? Mine shows the last 3 and I havent edited the code at all nor do I see a 3 anywhere in the code to edit..

Reply
- reza says:
  
  March 16, 2011 at 18:50
  
  How many categories you have in your site?
  
  Reply
  - Dee says:
    
    March 17, 2011 at 10:26
    
    Right now I have 1 category 11 subcategories and 1 uncategorized so 13 in all but that will be changing alot. I started playing with the post_per_page and changed it to 40 when there were 12 categories and it showed the last 5. I added 1 more category(13) and it started showing the last 6. Is there a formula to it?
- reza says:
  
  March 17, 2011 at 10:39
  
  ‘posts_per_page’ => 20
  
  means the script get 20 latest posts and the categories used in those 20 posts
  
  if only 1 categories used in those posts, then the script only displays 1 categories
  
  I guess, your last 20 posts only using 3 categories, so only 3 categories displayed
  
  Reply
  - Dee says:
    
    March 19, 2011 at 08:21
    
    Ohhhhh ok! So there is no way to just specify the last 5 categories updated no matter how many posts there are?
  - reza says:
    
    March 19, 2011 at 19:53
    
    Yup, no way with this code
andhie says:

July 14, 2011 at 21:10

then how to give the current active category css for this snippet?

Reply
Alensa Budiono says:

April 15, 2013 at 02:27

http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/25860/sort-x-categories-by-last-update-and-show-image

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