php - List categories by author ~ WITH COUNTER ~ (Wordpress)

Question

This is the code that I've got. It gives a list of the categories a given author has published in. However, I would very much like to have a number next to the category name, telling how many posts the author has published in the different categories. Anyone knows a trick? Thanks!

<?php
$author = get_query_var('author');
$categories = $wpdb->get_results("
    SELECT DISTINCT(terms.term_id) as ID, terms.name, terms.slug, tax.description
    FROM $wpdb->posts as posts
    LEFT JOIN $wpdb->term_relationships as relationships ON posts.ID = relationships.object_ID
    LEFT JOIN $wpdb->term_taxonomy as tax ON relationships.term_taxonomy_id = tax.term_taxonomy_id
    LEFT JOIN $wpdb->terms as terms ON tax.term_id = terms.term_id
    WHERE 1=1 AND (
        posts.post_status = 'publish' AND
        posts.post_author = '$author' AND
        tax.taxonomy = 'category' )
    ORDER BY terms.name ASC
");
?>
<ul>
    <?php foreach($categories as $category) : ?>
    <li>
        <a href="<?php echo get_category_link( $category->ID ); ?>" title="<?php echo $category->name ?>">
            <?php echo $category->name.' '.$category->description; ?>
        </a>
    </li>
    <?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>

EDIT:

This code counts the posts in the category, and works fine. I want to combine this with the code above, but I don't know how to do it...

<?php
$counter = "SELECT COUNT(*) 
FROM $wpdb->posts
LEFT JOIN $wpdb->term_relationships ON($wpdb->posts.ID = $wpdb->term_relationships.object_id)
LEFT JOIN $wpdb->term_taxonomy ON($wpdb->term_relationships.term_taxonomy_id = $wpdb->term_taxonomy.term_taxonomy_id)
WHERE $wpdb->term_taxonomy.term_id = 412
AND $wpdb->term_taxonomy.taxonomy = 'category'
AND $wpdb->posts.post_status = 'publish'
AND post_author = '1'
";


$user_count = $wpdb->get_var($counter);

echo $user_count;

?>

Answer 1

I figured it out... had to run to separate SELECT functions: one to fetch the list of categories, and then one more functions within that loop to count how many entries there is within the category. I would have preferred to have these two loops as one, but this works out for me.

<?php

// This will get us a list of the categories that our Author has published in
$author = get_query_var('author');
$categories = $wpdb->get_results("

SELECT DISTINCT(terms.term_id) as ID, terms.name, terms.slug, tax.description
FROM $wpdb->posts as posts
LEFT JOIN $wpdb->term_relationships as relationships ON posts.ID = relationships.object_ID
LEFT JOIN $wpdb->term_taxonomy as tax ON relationships.term_taxonomy_id = tax.term_taxonomy_id
LEFT JOIN $wpdb->terms as terms ON tax.term_id = terms.term_id
WHERE posts.post_status = 'publish' AND
    posts.post_author = '$author' AND
    tax.taxonomy = 'category' 
ORDER BY terms.name ASC
");


// This loop picks up categories
foreach($categories as $category) : 

$catid = $category->ID;

// Now, inside the loop, we need to count how many posts that the Author has published.
$counter = "SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM $wpdb->posts
LEFT JOIN $wpdb->term_relationships ON($wpdb->posts.ID = $wpdb->term_relationships.object_id)
LEFT JOIN $wpdb->term_taxonomy ON($wpdb->term_relationships.term_taxonomy_id = $wpdb->term_taxonomy.term_taxonomy_id)
WHERE $wpdb->term_taxonomy.term_id = $catid
AND $wpdb->term_taxonomy.taxonomy = 'category'
AND $wpdb->posts.post_status = 'publish'
AND post_author = '$author'
";

$user_count = $wpdb->get_var($counter);

echo '<div class="archive_author">' . $category->name . '<br/><span class="subcounter">' . $user_count . ' posts</span></div>';

endforeach; 

?>