Wordpress: Adding the category as text - not link

I want to add a ribbon on my posts on the front page, which shows the posts category.

I can add it as text like th开发者_如何学运维is (I use the Imbalance theme by WPShower):

<?php imbalance2_posted_in(); ?>

But how can I just write the Category Name, without markup so I can use it in classes and such?

Thank you in advance.

You can get the category of every post with get_the_category(). Below is shown how to get the category of the current post.

global $post;
$category = get_the_category( $post->ID ); //OR SOME OTHER ID, DEPENDING ON WHAT YOU WANT
$category_name = $category->name; //GETS THE ORIGINAL NAME, INCLUDING WHITESPACES
$category_slug = $category->slug; //GETS THE SLUG, WHICH WILL BE BETTER TO USE IN CLASSNAMES

EDIT

<?php 
    global $post;
    $category = get_the_category( $post->ID ); 
?>

<div class="box <?php echo($category->slug); ?>"></div>

You can use post_class() to generate a few class names including one for each category.

If you want to do it manually, you can get information on the categories using get_the_category() and put the class names together yourself.