Parent Items Messing Up Order When Using Get_Terms

I think the best will be to get the terms for a given parent at a time. Creating a redundant function will do the trick.
The idea is that the returned data for a get_terms on a hierarchical taxonomy will not help to much if get returned in a certain way (i.e. level 0 terms first, then level 1 or level 0 term then it’s child)
Giving that the best will be to retrieve the terms of a parent ‘parent’ => term_id, and create the variable structure as need or do the output.
Hope it make sense.

Thanks! Yes, I understand. I’m not too sure about exactly how to implement it though. I have to alter the code of a plugin & you’ll see how get_terms is currently used. Is there an easy way to add to this or would this need to be re-structured to work properly. Thanks so much!

$taxonomy = get_taxonomy($taxonomy);
                    $choices[] = array('text' => "-- select a {$taxonomy->labels->singular_name} --", 'value' => '');
                } else {
                    $choices[] = array('text' => $first_choice, 'value' => '');
                }
            } else {
                $terms = get_terms($taxonomy, 'orderby=term_order&hide_empty=0');
            }

            if ( !array_key_exists("errors",$terms) ) {
              foreach($terms as $term) {
                  $choices[] = array('value' => $term->term_id, 'text' => $term->name);
              }
            }

            return $choices;
        }

The above piece of code appear incomplete and might not be what you looking for.
Try this one instead, it will allow to output a taxonomy terms hierarchically, using a unordered list output type:

taxonomy_terms_hierarhically_output(0, 'category');

    function taxonomy_terms_hierarhically_output($parent_id, $taxonomy)
        {
            $args = array(
                            'parent'    =>  $parent_id
                            );
            $child_terms = get_terms($taxonomy, $args);

            //if no child terms found return
            if(count($child_terms) < 1)
                return;

            ?><ul><?php

            foreach ($child_terms as $child_term)
                {
                    ?><li><?php

                    echo $child_term->name;

                    //process the child terms if exists
                    taxonomy_terms_hierarhically_output($child_term->term_id, $taxonomy);

                    ?></li><?php
                }

            ?></ul><?php
        }

Possible the code contain errors as i didn’t tested in actual environment, but it should get you started.

Thanks! Will test it out.

Hello,
You must add some arguments in the function to get the categories in the right order:

$args = array('parent' => $parent_id, 'orderby' => 'term_order', 'hide_empty' => false);

And for me I add to display also posts associated to each category, so here’s my final function, if it can help anyone.

//get parent/child taxonomy in right order and display associated posts
function taxonomy_terms_hierarhically_output($parent_id, $taxonomy) {
  $args = array('parent'    =>  $parent_id, 'orderby' => 'term_order', 'hide_empty' => false);
  $child_terms = get_terms($taxonomy, $args);
	$taxIDone = function_exists('pll_get_term') ? pll_get_term(1) : 1;

  //if no child terms found return
  if(count($child_terms) < 1)
      return;

  foreach ($child_terms as $child_term) {
    $htag = $child_term->parent != 0 ? '3' : '2';
    echo '<h' . $htag . '>' . $child_term->name;
      //process the child terms if exists
      taxonomy_terms_hierarhically_output($child_term->term_id, $taxonomy);
    echo '</h' . $htag . '>';

    //display category posts
    echo $child_term->term_id != $taxIDone ? '<ul>':'';

		$args = array(
			'post_type' 		=> 'post',
			'category'	     => $child_term->term_id,
			'posts_per_page'   => -1
		);
		$posts = get_posts($args);

		if ( $posts && $child_term->term_id != $taxIDone ) {
			foreach($posts as $post) {
				setup_postdata($post);

				?><li><?php echo $post->post_title;?>
        <span class="edit-link"><a href="
            <?php echo get_edit_post_link($post->ID);?>"><?php _e( 'Edit', 'YOUR_THEME_NAME' );?></a></span></li>

			<?php
			} //end foreach($posts
		}
    echo $child_term->term_id != $taxIDone  ? '</ul>':'';

  }//end foreach($child_terms...
}

Some code are specific to my theme but still maybe useful to someone. If not I’ll be glad to explain how to get rid of it ??

And Thanks again for your plugin!