How to display sticky post from a certain category? [Mimbo 3.0] WordPress

Xavier Faraudo answers:

I'd suggest that you use three "queries": one for sticky posts, other for the category, then merge both in another one.

Let's start with:

$post_ids = array();
$cat_posts = get_posts( 'paged=$page&posts_per_page=-1&cat=' . get_query_var('cat') );
if( $cat_posts ){
foreach( $cat_posts as $cat_post ){
$post_ids[] = $cat_post->ID;
};
};

We got here all the post ids for those in cat in the array. Now we'll add the stickies:

$stickies = get_posts ( array( 'cat' => get_query_var('cat') ,'post__in' => get_option("sticky") , 'posts_per_page' => -1 ) );
if( $stickies ){ foreach( $stickies as $sticky ){
$post_ids[] = $sticky->ID;
}; };

Now, all the post ids are in the array. We can query_posts (and populate $wp_query, and all those things that query_posts does which get_posts doesn't).

$posts = query_posts( array( 'post__in' => $post_ids ) );

Please note that this can be specially useful in combination with rewind_posts(). You can get all the posts (ordered) which comply the criteria, loop them and do something only to, say, stickies, and then rewind_posts() and do something different checking if posts are not stickies, and/or are in a given category, etc.