get custom attributes from an Mage_Sales_Model_Order_Item object - magento

Question

I’m writing an Observer for manage the order’s items, I need to send an email for every order based on some custom attributes.
The item object is Mage_Sales_Model_Order_Item and searching around I’ve tried methods like getData(’my_code’), getCustomAttribute, getAttributeText without success.
I need to get the category, size, color and some custom attributes…
Here my little code
class Example_OrderMod_Model_Observer{
public function doSomething($observer){
$order = $observer->getEvent()->getOrder();
$id_ordine = $order->getRealOrderId();
$cliente = $observer->getEvent()->getOrder()->getCustomerName();
foreach ($order->getAllItems() as $item) {
//$item is an instance of Mage_Sales_Model_Order_Item
$quantita = $item->getQtyOrdered();
$codice_giglio = $item->getSku();
//echo $item->getData('size');
var_dump($item->getAttributeText('size'));
var_dump($item->getProductOptionByCode('size'));
var_dump($item->getProductOptionByCode('famiglia'));
}
// die();
}
}
any ideas?
many thanks

Answer 1

You'll probably want to load up the product object, and then get your data off of that object. That will allow you to utilize all the methods you are looking for:
$product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load($item->getProductId());
$size = $product->getAttributeText('size');

Answer 2

If $item is instance of Mage_Sales_Model_Order_Item you could simply use:
$product = $item->getProduct();

Answer 3

solution of display custom attributes
function getAttr($product_id, $attributeName) {
$product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load($product_id);
$attributes = $product->getAttributes();
$attributeValue = null;
if(array_key_exists($attributeName , $attributes)) {
$attributesobj = $attributes["{$attributeName}"];
$attributeValue = $attributesobj->getFrontend()->getValue($product);
}
return $attributeValue;
}

Answer 4

When i tried the above methods it didn't worked somehow in my observer class. Actually the product model is unable to load with the above code block. I found this code and it worked. It loads the product model in observer.
$product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product');
$productId = $product->getIdBySku($item->getSku());
$product->load($productId);