Pulling Products from a category and their attributes in magento

Question

what type of block would i use and what method would I call.

Also what type of array would it return and where would I find the attributes , price and all that good stuff.

Thanks

Answer 1

Declare your own block in a module and use the following code to get the products you need:

function getProducts() {
    $id = $this->getCategoryId(); // you will have to call setCategoryId somewhere else
    $category = Mage::getModel("catalog/category")->load($id);

    $products = $category->getProductCollection();
    $products->addAttributeToSelect("*"); // adds all attributes
    //$products->addAttributeToSelect(array("name", "color")); // more precise way to add attributes

    return $products;
}

Then, in your view:

$products = $this->getProducts(); // this is a collection object, not an array, but we can iterate over it anyway.
foreach($products as $productObject) {
    $color = $productObject->getColor();
    $name = $productObject->getName();
    $sku = $productObject->getSku(); // some things are retrieved even if you don't ask for them.
}

That should get you started. Take a look at app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Model/Product.php for more information on how to retrieve attributes. If you continue to have trouble, post some code you've tried and we can keep going.

Hope that helps!

Thanks, Joe