Tag: Template Hierarchy

Force sub-categories to use the parent category template

A couple of times in the last several years, I’ve needed sub-categories to inherit their parent’s archive template, but it’s just not something the Template Hierarchy supports. I’ve seen several plugins that tried and failed to do it, so finally I wrote a little filter that in my testing, works any number of levels deep, from sub-sub-categories to sub-sub-sub-categories. Enjoy!

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function new_subcategory_hierarchy() { 
    $category = get_queried_object();
 
    $parent_id = $category->category_parent;
 
    $templates = array();
     
    if ( $parent_id == 0 ) {
        // Use default values from get_category_template()
        $templates[] = "category-{$category->slug}.php";
        $templates[] = "category-{$category->term_id}.php";
        $templates[] = 'category.php';     
    } else {
        // Create replacement $templates array
        $parent = get_category( $parent_id );
 
        // Current first
        $templates[] = "category-{$category->slug}.php";
        $templates[] = "category-{$category->term_id}.php";
 
        // Parent second
        $templates[] = "category-{$parent->slug}.php";
        $templates[] = "category-{$parent->term_id}.php";
        $templates[] = 'category.php'; 
    }
    return locate_template( $templates );
}
 
add_filter( 'category_template', 'new_subcategory_hierarchy' );