Wordpress experts...exclude category by name instead of ID?

Whats the difference? Can’t you simply look up the cat_name by ID number in the DB?

sorry if thats totally wrong, its been a years since I looked at wp.

@jackm because its for a plugin and I dont want users to have change category ID’s in the plugin file.

Category ID’s will change from user to user but the category name can remain constant. so im trying to eliminate the need to alter the category ID in the plugin.

What I am saying though is can’t you convert the users input of cat_name into cat ID with a few lines of code?

@jackm not that I have discovered so far.

Correct me if I am wrong, but cant you simply search the DB for the name they input and then select the ID associated with it?

What about using an array?
http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.array.php