PHP: Get WordPress Post Categories

When I put together my WordPress theme, I wanted to put all of my post categories in the footer of the page and in two column format. Obviously there isn't a built-in WordPress function that will format the categories the way I wanted to so it was up to me to do all the work. Here's how I was a able to put my categories in two column format.

The PHP Code

<h5>Discussion Topics</h5>
<?php
	/* BUILD THE CATEGORY LIST */
	$categories = get_categories(array('type' => 'post','child_of' => 0,'orderby' => 'name','order' => 'ASC','hide_empty' => true));
	$category_count = 0; $category_col = 1;
	
	foreach($categories as $catty) 
	{
		$category_count++;
		${'category_list_'.$category_col}[] = array('name'=>$catty->cat_name,'url'=>$catty->category_nicename);
		if(floor($category_count) == (count($categories) / 2)) { $category_col = 2; }
	}
?>
<div id="col-1">
	<?php foreach($category_list_1 as $item) { echo '<a href="/sugar/',$item['url'],'">',$item['name'],'</a>'; } ?>
</div>
<div id="col-2">
	<?php foreach($category_list_2 as $item) { echo '<a href="/sugar/',$item['url'],'">',$item['name'],'</a>'; } ?>
</div>

Easy, right? WordPress is a magnificent tool with plenty of helpful functions -- the get_categories() function is only one of them.