See: http://www.pmachine.com/forum/threads.php?id=19414_0_19_0_C

A category_id for use in the {categories}{/categories} variable pair and in {ex:weblog:categories} would be useful for hardcoding category URLs (for example in the case of multi-blog pages) in the same way that {entry_id} is used to hardcode entry URLs.

After pondering this issue some more, I am wondering if the best approach might not be a variable than can be used instead of path/permalink/entry_id_path/etc in situations where hardcoding a link is necessary.

This variable could allow you to give the full URL _except_ for the entry id, category id, member id or whatever is required for the link in question. The id would then be added automatically, just as it is when you use for example path or permalink. This would seem like the most consisten approach.

Of course, for the sake of completeness, it would still be nice to have category_id to match entry_id. And the same goes for any other id types that are added automatically to certain kinds of links but which don’t currently have a corresponding variable. But maybe category_id is the only missing one?

I’d like to second this one. In fact, there are a number of variables that might be nice to have access to in various tags. Most of which I can’t recall off top of my head at the moment because I forgot to write them down.

I’ll start keeping a list of variables that would be nice to have once I hit a situation where I find I don’t have one again.

> This variable could allow you to give the full URL _except_ for the entry id, category id, member id or whatever is required for the link in question. The id would then be added automatically

That’s exactly what the current {path=} tag does when you use it inside either {categories}{/categories} or {exp:weblog:categories}.  I don’t understand how what you’re proposing is different.

But {path=} only allows you to specify {path=template_group/template}, no? I am looking for something that allows me to do this:

{path=http://www.domain.com/index.php/template_group/template/} and which, for example, will add on the category ID itself when used within {categories}{/categories} or {exp:weblog:categories}. Or the entry ID in other circumstances.

Essentially, it would be like hardcoding the URL expect you wouldn’t have to add {entry_id} or any other id tags yourself.

I think you would be better off simply with a {category_id} variable like the original idea.  Then you just do:

Certainly works fine for me. I was just thinking that since using the variables auto-adds the id, it might be more intuitive to have something that worked that way.

But {category_id} would do the job just fine. Are there any other ids ‘missing’ that are auto-added by certain variables but which currently can’t be added manually?

The “page ID” if pagination is in use would be the only other one I can think of.

That would definitely be another good one to have available.