category_cache

Wordpress uses category_cache global variable to cache categories by posts. This means that it can be queried for categories by providing the post ID. It is a two-dimensional array set in the function update_post_category_cache($post_ids) defined in [wordpress root folder]/wp-includes/functions.php.

The cache can improve performance by saving repeated trips to the database for querying the same data.

Wordpress uses category_cache internally in the following functions:

• get_the_category($post_id = false): returns categories the specified post is classified under. An array of the categories is returned.
• in_category($category): tells whether the current post is in the specified category or not.

Back to full list of global variables.

Technorati tags: category_cache