Get a product’s attribute without load (with label)

Sometimes, you need to get a precise information about a product, and it’s very boring to load it.

Two methods are possible :

Collection method

$productId = 25; // Your product ID
$model = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')
->getCollection()
->addAttributeToSelect('attribute_code')
->addAttributeToFilter('entity_id',$productId)
->getFirstItem();

$attribute_value = $model->getAttributeCode();

We retrieve one result with the “getFirstItem” method, and get the attribute value thanks to “addAttributeToSelect” method

AttributeRawValue Method

With a single line of code, you can get the attribute value of your product :

$productId = 25;
$attribute_value = Mage::getResourceModel('catalog/product')->getAttributeRawValue($productId, 'attribute_code');

You can add a third parameter which is the storeId or the store object itself.

$productId = 25;
$attribute_value = Mage::getResourceModel('catalog/product')->getAttributeRawValue($productId, 'attribute_code', 1);

If I want many values?

If you want many values, in the collection method, you have to put an array in your addAttributeToSelect :

$model = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')
->getCollection()
->addAttributeToSelect(array('attribute_code','attribute_code_bis'))
->addAttributeToFilter('entity_id',$productId)
->getFirstItem();

$attribute_value = $model->getAttributeCode();
$attribute_value_bis = $model->getAttributeCodeBis();

And with AttributeRawValue method, you need one line per attribute :

$rc = Mage::getResourceModel('catalog/product');
$attribute_value = $rc->getAttributeRawValue($productId, 'attribute_code'); 
$attribute_value_bis = $rc->getAttributeRawValue($productId, 'attribute_code_bis');

Which is the best?

Performances between the two methods are close, and better than a load. If you method will be called many times, “getAttributeRawValue” is better. If it will be called only one time during the page load, prefer “getCollection”.

There is a complete article on this website :
How to get product’s attribute with getAttributeRawValue() in Magento (Get product attribute without load on Magento)

Retrieve attribute’s label

When my attribute is a select, how to retrieve the real value ?

With the 2 methods above, you will have the “value_id” of the value. But you can need to have the label of this attribute value :

// Not loading the product, just creating one simple instance
$product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')
->setStoreId($store_id) // Set a store ID to define the language, 0 for Admin
->setAttributeCode($attribute_value); // Respect Camel case for your setter
$attribute_label= $product->getAttributeText('attribute_code');

If you already have a product instance :

// Not loading the product, just creating one simple instance
$attribute_label = $product
->setStoreId($store_id) // Set a store ID to define the language, 0 for Admin
->setAttributeCode($attribute_value) // Respect Camel case for your setter
->getAttributeText('attribute_code');

Retrieve attribute option label in SQL (with store_id)

Here you can find a little function with 2 parameters : the id of the value and the store id (optional).
You can put it on a helper for example.

public function getAttributeOptionValue($optionId, $storeId = 0){
        $db = Mage::getSingleton('core/resource')->getConnection('core_read');
        $query = 'SELECT value FROM eav_attribute_option_value WHERE (store_id = '.$storeId.' OR store_id = 0) AND option_id = '.$optionId.' ORDER BY store_id DESC LIMIT 0,1';
        try{
            $row = $db->fetchRow($query);
        } catch(Exception $e){
            return false;
        }

        if(empty($row)  || !isset($row['value'])){
            return false;
        }

        return $row['value'];
    }