Categories in page attributes

Sorry Drew, but how?

I'm now using a page attributes template service_category.html

<perch:categories id="service" label="Which service does this page relate to?" set="Services">
  <perch:category id="catPath" />
</perch:categories>

And pulling this into my page attributes default.html as follows.

<perch:template path="pages/attributes/service_category.html" />

I can set a category in Page Details for each page.

In my page template:

$service_category = perch_page_attributes(array('template' => 'service_category.html'), true);
$service_category = rtrim($service_category); // trim space or other spurious characters at end of string
$service_category = rtrim($service_category, '/'); // remove forward slash at end of path
echo $service_category; // for testing only; eg services/personal-injury which is the correct format I need for a category path

// display Team relating to a specific category
perch_collection('Team', [
     'template'   => 'team_on_page.html',
     'sort'       => 'team_name',
      'sort-order' => 'ASC',
      // filter by category
      'category' => $service_category
]);

But this returns nothing.

I feel I'm using a massive sledgehammer and failing to crack a nut. Not sure whether all the PHP trimming is required, but it does remove the trailing slash.

echo $service_category; outputs what looks like a valid category path eg services/personal-injury. But when I use $service_category to filter my collection, I get nothing.

And if I filter the collection by typing in a category path instead of using the variable, it works.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks Drew. There was "\r\n" at the start of the value that was interfering. So I changed a rtrim to a trim and everything appears to be working OK now. My final page template code in case it's of use to anyone else is:

$service_category = perch_page_attributes(array('template' => 'service_category.html'), true); // true returns the templated output
$service_category = trim($service_category); // trim space or other spurious characters from both ends of string
$service_category = rtrim($service_category, '/'); // remove forward slash at end of path
echo $service_category; // for testing only; eg services/personal-injury which is the correct format I need for a category path

// display Team relating to a specific category
    perch_collection('Team', [
        'template'   => 'team_on_page.html',
        'sort'       => 'team_name',
         'sort-order' => 'ASC',
          // filter by category
          'category' => $service_category
     ]);

Quick question. Is this the simplest way to select a category in page attributes and then use it to filter collections in a page template? I'm a bit surprised I have to fiddle around manipulating the PHP variable this way.

Drew I can't see how to use skip-template to return the catPath

$service_category = perch_page_attributes(array(
                'skip-template' => true
            )); // true returns the templated output 

print_r($service_category);

The array returned doesn't contain catPath:

Array
(
    [specialisms] => Array
        (
            [0] => 1
        )

    [description] => Array
        (
            [_flang] => plain
            [raw] => EFM Sport
            [processed] => EFM Sport
        )

    [keywords] => Array
        (
            [_flang] => plain
            [raw] => 
            [processed] => 
        )

    [noindex] => 
    [nofollow] => 
    [nosnippet] => 
    [pageID] => 16
    [pageParentID] => 0
    [pagePath] => /sport
    [pageTitle] => Sport
    [pageNavText] => Sport
    [pageNew] => 0
    [pageOrder] => 7
    [pageDepth] => 1
    [pageSortPath] => /sport
    [pageTreePosition] => 000-009
    [pageSubpageRoles] => 
    [pageSubpagePath] => 
    [pageHidden] => 0
    [pageNavOnly] => 0
    [pageAccessTags] => 
    [pageCreatorID] => 1
    [pageModified] => 2017-04-20 14:39:03
    [pageAttributes] => {"specialisms":["1"],"description":{"_flang":"plain","raw":"EFM Sport","processed":"EFM Sport"},"keywords":{"_flang":"plain","raw":"","processed":""},"noindex":null,"nofollow":null,"nosnippet":null}
    [pageAttributeTemplate] => default.html
    [pageTemplate] => default.php
    [templateID] => 1
    [pageSubpageTemplates] => 
    [pageCollections] => 
    [perch_specialisms] => Array
        (
            [0] => 1
        )

    [perch_description] => Array
        (
            [_flang] => plain
            [raw] => EFM Sport
            [processed] => EFM Sport
        )

    [perch_keywords] => Array
        (
            [_flang] => plain
            [raw] => 
            [processed] => 
        )

    [perch_noindex] => 
    [perch_nofollow] => 
    [perch_nosnippet] => 
)