Magento ->getSku() or getData(’sku’) returns empty string

Question

I have Magento 1.3.2 and I have weird issue:

When I am in list.phtml, and I try to fetch the SKU by using getSku() or getData('sku') I get empty string. getName() does work. However, when I do that from other pages, it works well.

I var_dump-ed it and no SKU is shown.

What can cause this?

Answer 1

I'm surprised nobody has given you the easiest and most proper answer yet:

Go to your admin, Catalog >> Attributes >> Manage Attributes. Then edit the 'sku' attribute. Change the "Used in Product Listing" from 'No' to 'Yes'. You will then have access to it from the product object in list.phtml with ->getSku()

Answer 2

The other option is to re-load the product object in the list.phtml using the ID of the product you already have. The code reads something a little like:

$sku = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load($_product->getId())->getSku();

Note that $_product is what you are getting in your collection already, and note that getSku is case sensitive (as are all Magento attributes getter/setters).

@Prattski's solution is preferable as you don't really want to be messing with loading/manipulating the objects, but it sounds as though your collection is a little messed up. SKU is one of the core fields that exists in the base catalog_product_entity table, so would be unusual not to be loaded.