Looping through wordpress categories

Question

I am new to Wordpress and been pulling my hair out trying to create a category loop. The loop is supposed to:

1. loop through all categories
2. echo out the category name (with link to
3. echo out the last 5 posts in that category (with permalink to post)

The html for each would be

<div class="cat_wrap">
   <div class="cat_name">
       <a href="<?php get_category_link( $category_id ); ?>">Cat Name</a>
   </div>
   <ul class="cat_items">
      <li class="cat_item">
         <a href="permalink">cat item 1</a>
      </li>
      <li class="cat_item">
         <a href="permalink">cat item 2</a>
      </li>
      <li class="cat_item">
          <a href="permalink">cat item 3</a>
      </li>
      <li class="cat_item">
         <a href="permalink">cat item 4</a>
      </li>
      <li class="cat_item">
         <a href="permalink">cat item 5</a>
      </li>
   </ul>
</div>

Please help

Answer 1

Take a look at this other Stackoverflow thread:

https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/346/loop-through-custom-taxonomies-and-display-posts/233948#233948

I posted an answer that I use in production and works like a charm.

Just remember to adjust the arguments to display only 5 posts, instead of all.

$args = array( 'showposts' => 5 );

Add 'showposts' => 5 to your current array of arguments in the loop that iterates through the posts of each category.

Answer 2

Oops, missed that you wanted 5 posts

<?php
//for each category, show 5 posts
$cat_args=array(
  'orderby' => 'name',
  'order' => 'ASC'
   );
$categories=get_categories($cat_args);
  foreach($categories as $category) { 
    $args=array(
      'showposts' => 5,
      'category__in' => array($category->term_id),
      'caller_get_posts'=>1
    );
    $posts=get_posts($args);
      if ($posts) {
        echo '<p>Category: <a href="' . get_category_link( $category->term_id ) . '" title="' . sprintf( __( "View all posts in %s" ), $category->name ) . '" ' . '>' . $category->name.'</a> </p> ';
        foreach($posts as $post) {
          setup_postdata($post); ?>
          <p><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></p>
          <?php
        } // foreach($posts
      } // if ($posts
    } // foreach($categories
?>

Answer 3

Hy keeping things simple here is how you can solve it

<?php wp_list_categories('show_count=1&title_li=<h2>Categories</h2>'); ?>

Answer 4

I have made this bit of code to loop through the nested categories. Sharing.

        //Start on the category of your choice       
        ShowCategories(0);

        function ShowCategories($parent_category) {
                $categories = get_categories(array('parent' => $parent_category, 'hide_empty' => 0));  
                foreach ($categories as $category) {
                    ?><ul><li><?=$category->cat_name;?><?
                    ShowCategories($category->cat_ID);
                    ?></li></ul><?
                }
        }