get the category names only, with get_terms

Question

<?php  
  $categories = array('bathroom', 'bar');  

    foreach ($categories as $category) {
        $args = array( 'post_type' => 'product', 'posts_per_page' => 3, 'product_cat' => $category, 'orderby' => 'rand' );
?>

I want to make the function above a little more dynamic. In such a way that I won't have to manually add the specific categories to the $categories variable. Instead, I need something that will get only the names of the (woocommerce product) categories, and places them in an array.

I did get the list with this:

$category_list_items = get_terms( 'product_cat' );

foreach($category_list_items as $category_list_item){
    echo $category_list_item->name;
}

But I don't know how to get this list into the first function. Does anyone have an idea how to do this?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Based on my understanding of the question, you are populating $category_list_items as an array of category_list_item objects from your application. As a result you can turn your echo into an array of category names and then pass it to your function

$categories = []; //array to store all of your category names
$category_list_items = get_terms( 'product_cat' );

foreach($category_list_items as $category_list_item){
    if(! empty($category_list_item->name) ){
        array_push($categories, $category_list_item->name);
    }
}

Once this foreach has been run, you will now have a categories array populated to pass to your above function.

Hope this helps.