CMS blocks have identifier
Products have sku
Categories have ... url_key? ... entity_id?
Neither of these options are really up to snuff, url_key can be malleable and entity_id is not very developer friendly.
This model adds a unique attribute code to Mage_Catalog_Model_Category.
You can use it like
$category = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')
->loadByAttribute('code', 'unique_code_value');
//or
$categories = Mage::getResourceModel('catalog/category_collection');
$categories->addAttributeToSelect(array('code'));
Add it to your composer
{
"require": {
"magento-hackathon/magento-composer-installer": "~2.0",
"convenient/category-code":"~0.1"
},
"repositories": [
{
"type": "composer",
"url": "http://packages.firegento.com"
}
],
"extra": {
"magento-root-dir":"./",
"magento-deploystrategy":"copy"
}
}