Copy Magento Category

Since first laying eyes on Magento, the open source eCommerce software, I been impressed by it’s power, flexibility and rigid code structure. But despite Magento’s almost endless list of strengths, it also has some significant weaknesses, that often leave me frustrated and confused. One such weakness is the apparent lack of any functionality in regards to copying products and categories.

I had created a category, with about 10 child categories. Now I just wanted to duplicate that category 5 times, rather than creating another 4 from scratch, each with 10 children (4×10=40 categories!). Rather than spend the next couple of hours adding categories, I knocked together this quick PHP script. Simply pass in the ID of the category you’d like to duplicate, and it will create a copy of the category, along with all of it’s child categories, as deep as they go!

Ideally, this would be a proper Magento module, but I’m just starting out with Magento. Give me 6 months, eh?!

To use the script, simply copy it into a file such as copycat.php in your Magento root directory and call it like so:

http://www.example.com/copycat.php?id=[CATEGORY ID TO COPY]

<?php
 
 
if(!is_numeric($_GET['id']))die('Please specify a category ID');
 
$catId = $_GET['id'];
 
$xml = simplexml_load_file('app/etc/local.xml');
$host = $xml->global->resources->default_setup->connection->host;
$username = $xml->global->resources->default_setup->connection->username;
$password = $xml->global->resources->default_setup->connection->password;
$dbname = $xml->global->resources->default_setup->connection->dbname; 
$res = mysql_pconnect($host, $username, $password);   
mysql_select_db($dbname);
 
 
 
 
$catsDone = 0;
duplicate_entity($catId);
echo $catsDone . ' Categories duplicated.';
 
function duplicate_entity($id, $parent_id = null){
	global $catsDone;
 
 
	// Grab category to copy
	$sql = "SELECT * FROM catalog_category_entity WHERE entity_id = " . $id;
	$query_entity = mysql_query($sql);
 
	$entity = mysql_fetch_object($query_entity);
 
 
	if(!$parent_id)$parent_id = $entity->parent_id;
 
 
 
 
	mysql_query("INSERT INTO catalog_category_entity (entity_type_id, attribute_set_id, parent_id, created_at, updated_at, path, position, level, children_count)
						VALUES ({$entity->entity_type_id}, {$entity->attribute_set_id}, {$parent_id}, NOW(), NOW(), '', {$entity->position}, {$entity->level}, {$entity->children_count})");
	$newEntityId = mysql_insert_id();
 
	$query = mysql_query("SELECT path FROM catalog_category_entity WHERE entity_id = " . $parent_id);
	$parent = mysql_fetch_object($query);
	$path = $parent->path . '/' . $newEntityId;
 
	mysql_query("UPDATE catalog_category_entity SET path='". $path."' WHERE entity_id=". $newEntityId);
 
 
	foreach(array('datetime', 'decimal', 'int', 'text', 'varchar') as $dataType){
		$sql = "SELECT * FROM catalog_category_entity_".$dataType."
				WHERE entity_id=" . $entity->entity_id;
				//die($sql);
		$query = mysql_query($sql);
		while ($value = mysql_fetch_object($query)){
			mysql_query("INSERT INTO catalog_category_entity_".$dataType." (entity_type_id, attribute_id, store_id, entity_id, value)
							VALUES ({$value->entity_type_id}, {$value->attribute_id}, {$value->store_id}, {$newEntityId}, '{$value->value}')");
		}
	}
 
 
	$sql = "SELECT entity_id FROM catalog_category_entity WHERE parent_id = " . $id;
	$query = mysql_query($sql);
 
	while ($entity = mysql_fetch_object($query)){
		duplicate_entity($entity->entity_id, $newEntityId);
	}
	$catsDone++;
}
 
 
 
 
?>
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Copyright © 2018. Created by Hayden Kibble.