Does the 'cat' argument in query_posts fetch posts from subcategories as well as the given ID?

Question

Hello friends I am new to wordpress.

I have used query like this query_posts('cat=1,2,3')

now If category 1 is parent of 2 and 3.

then query_posts('cat=1') and query_posts('cat=1,2,3') will get same posts or not? or how can I manage If I want to include posts form subcategories.

Answer 1

In short: Yes.

Your question is about the query_posts Wordpress PHP function. The link I've placed is the official wordpress codex documentation for that function.

For your example it states:

Display posts from only one category ID (and any children of that category):

query_posts('cat=4');

I hope this information is helpful. You find more infos in codex, the function is pretty powerful.

Answer 2

Yes, cat=x get's posts in x and all sub-categories, if you don't want this behavior doing category__in => array( x ) will only get posts specifically in that category.

Answer 3

I can't comment yet, so I have to submit an answer. To map Joe Hoyle's answer on to query_posts, you'd do the following:

query_posts('category__in=1');

That'd would give you just the main category, without the subcategories.

It's not what the OP was asking for, but I found this via Google when searching for how to just show the main category, so others may find this too.