category description in single.php wordpress

Question

any ideas.

this works fine in category.php <?php echo category_description(the_category_id()); ?>

but it does not work in single.php, just the category id shows up not the description.

any ideas, how to get this done?

thanks in advance

edited:

Answer 1

the_category_id() 

has been deprecated. This should work instead.

$category = get_the_category();
echo category_description($category[0]->cat_ID);

Answer 2

Use

$category = get_category( get_query_var( 'cat' ) );
$category = $category->cat_ID;

To get current category ID, then echo the description

echo category_description($category);

This was used on Archive page (Category page) as at the time of running the code.

For a shorter version:

echo category_description(get_category(get_query_var('cat'))->cat_ID);