PHP wordpress get a multidimensional array of category objects

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am trying to get all the categories on my wordpress as a heirarchial multidimensional array of objects of type category.
There are 2 functions in wordpress that kind of do what I want, but not exactly :

1) get_categories() – This one does return an array of category objects, which is great, but then the array is a flat one, where there is no differentiation between which category is a parent or which one is a child.

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2) wp_list_categories() – which can return the categories with the herarchy intact, but problem is that the return value is html, and I need the categories to still be objects.

For example, if I had the following 3 trees as my parent-less categories : 

/*
tree_stump

tree1
    branch1

tree2
    branch2
        twig2
            leaves2
            flowers2
            fruits2
*/

I am trying to get a return value which could be something like: 

$cat_tree=array( 1=>$tree_stump,2=>array(1=>$tree1,2=>$branch1),3=>array(1=>$tree2,2=>array(1=>$branch2,2=>array($twig2,$leaves2,$flowers2,$fruits2  ) ) ) );

where each member of the multi dim array is still an object, and in all the child arrays, the first one is the parent of the rest of the members. I guess this would need some kinda recursive stuff – the stuff that gives me jitters !

Not sure if I made sense, please do let me know if I need to be more clear..
Thanks for reading.

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4 comments

  1. Here’s my version which assumes $categories is the output of get_categories() but it doesn’t matter what order they come in.

    $cats_tree = get_cat_tree(0,$categories);
function get_cat_tree($parent,$categories) {
    $result = array();
    foreach($categories as $category){
        if ($parent == $category->category_parent) {
            $category->children = get_cat_tree($category->cat_ID,$categories);
            $result[] = $category;
        }
    }
    return $result;
}

  2. this is what i did:
    First get an array using get_categories(). Then transform it into a new array.
    I’m assuming that all children are below its parents in the original array.

    $cats_tree = array();
foreach($categories as $category){
    $parent = $category->parent;
    if ( $parent && isset($cats_tree[$parent]) ){
        $cats_tree[$parent]->children[$category->cat_ID] = $category;
    }else{              
        $cats_tree[$category->cat_ID] = $category;
    }
}

    Hope this is still useful for someone

  3. <?php
$args = array(
    'taxonomy' => 'category',
    'orderby' => 'name',
    'order' => 'ASC',
    'hierarchical'  => true,
    'hide_empty' => false,
);
$the_query = new WP_Term_Query($args);
$categories = $the_query->get_terms();    

function get_cat_tree($parent,$categories) {
    $result = array();
    foreach($categories as $category){
        if ($parent == $category->parent) {
            $category->children = get_cat_tree($category->term_id,$categories);
            $result[] = $category;
        }
    }
    return $result;
}
$cats_tree = get_cat_tree(0,$categories);