Parent Category Count Update

[vivek.jain]

WordFlow:
When I assign a child category to a post then its automatically gets appended with the respective Parent category. The post appears in for both, parent as well as the child category.

Bug:
Only the child category count is updated and not the parent category's.

Environment:
Tested on latest version, and on fresh install.

[knutsp]

I think it's by design that the count is only for posts explicitly connected to that category. You can move a category to another parent, and in such case it would involve a huge recount on sites with many posts.

There are two alternatives, besides "fixing" it in core:

1. Always add the parent category when a child is added, manually or enforced through a plugin.
2. A plugin that lets you recount, counting also child category posts. Possibly forcing a complete recount when the hierarchy is changed by moving or deleting a child category.

Expect a wontfix. IMO.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Replying to knutsp:

I think it's by design that the count is only for posts explicitly connected to that category.

Correct. This was previously discussed in #1062.

There's a pad_counts parameter in get_terms() for retrieving the counts including child terms:
​http://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/3.5.1/wp-includes/taxonomy.php#L1152

The parameter can also be passed to wp_dropdown_categories() and wp_list_categories(), although it's not documented there:
​http://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/3.5.1/wp-includes/category-template.php#L323
​http://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/3.5.1/wp-includes/category-template.php#L429

Always add the parent category when a child is added, manually or enforced through a plugin.

Related: #16397.

Closing as a duplicate of #1062.