Thread

In my ongoing quest to create a header snippet that will dynamically assign <title> and <meta> values based on the type of content being viewed, I wrote the following code:

{if segment_1}
 {exp:query sql="SELECT exp_channels.channel_title, exp_channels.channel_description, exp_categories.cat_name, exp_categories.cat_description FROM exp_channels, exp_categories WHERE exp_channels.channel_name='{last_segment}' OR exp_categories.cat_url_title='{last_segment}'"}
  {if total_results=='1'}
   <title>{channel_title} - {cat_name}</title>
  {/if}
  {if total_results>'1'}
   <title>{total_results}</title>
  {/if}
  {if no_results}
   <title>No Results</title>
  {/if}
 {/exp:query}
{/if}

The goal is to select only one row from EITHER the exp_channels or exp_categories table (assuming unique channel/category names).

The problem is that when I’m viewing a page where {last_segment} is a channel, then the query returns a row for each of my categories, and when I’m viewing a page where {last_segment} is a category, it returns a row for each of my channels.

Obviously something is either wrong with my query, or with how EE is handling it. I don’t have a great understanding of selecting from multiple tables at once so I’m guessing I’m the one who’s wrong, but would appreciate any insight on what I can do to fix it.