Get the category of a single Portfolio page

Hi I am creating a custom function in order to show the number of a certain portfolio post respect to the total number of Portfolio posts with teh same category (my portfolio posts are characterized by one single category).

The function creates a shortcode to visualize n./tot where
n = single post number
tot = tot posts within the category applied to the actual post

Right now my function works, but it retrieves all posts (disregarding the category type) and it is as follows

add_shortcode('test-count-post', 'get_current_post_num');
function get_current_post_num() {
   $url = $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'].$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
    $curr_post_id = url_to_postid( "https://".$url )
  
  $args = array(
      'post_type' => 'portfolio',
      'post_status' => 'publish',
      'order'=> 'ASC',
      'posts_per_page' => -1
  );
  $portfolio_posts = new WP_Query($args);

  if ($portfolio_posts->have_posts()):
      $total_posts = $portfolio_posts->found_posts;
      $num = 1;
     
      while ($portfolio_posts->have_posts()) : $portfolio_posts->the_post();
      $post_id = get_the_ID();

      if ($post_id === $curr_post_id) {
          $output= $num . '/' . $total_posts;
      } else {
          $num++;
      }
    endwhile;
  endif;
return $output;
} 

For example, I have 3 portfolio posts and the output on post 1 is “1/3”. The output on the second published post is “2/3” etc. Of my test posts, the first 2 have category “xx” and the last one has category “yy”
So I would like to show, when I am in post 1, “1/2”, while when I am on post 3 -> “1/1”

To do so I tried to add to my function the following code on line 5 (just after having grabbed the postID)

$category = get_the_category( $curr_post_id);

but the var_dump gives me an empty array (while I am expecting the ID of the applied category to that specific post). Later I was planning to add the variable $category to the array of $args, in order to retrieve only the posts within that specific category.

So my question is: why the $category array appears as empty?
Thanks

• This topic was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by elenapoliti.