Simplified get terms - had to do this to get to something else but thought it might come in handy someday

gistfile1.txt

  function get_terms($taxonomy, $args = '') {
		global $wpdb;

		$empty_array = array();

		$single_taxonomy = true;

		if ( ! taxonomy_exists($taxonomy) ) {
			$error = new WP_Error('invalid_taxonomy', __('Invalid taxonomy'));
			return $error;
		}

		$defaults = array('orderby' => 'name', 'order' => 'ASC',
			'hide_empty' => true, 'exclude' => array(), 'exclude_tree' => array(), 'include' => array(),
			'number' => '', 'fields' => 'all', 'slug' => '', 'parent' => '',
			'hierarchical' => true, 'child_of' => 0, 'get' => '', 'name__like' => '',
			'pad_counts' => false, 'offset' => '', 'search' => '', 'cache_domain' => 'core' );
		$args = wp_parse_args( $args, $defaults );
		$args['number'] = absint( $args['number'] );
		$args['offset'] = absint( $args['offset'] );
		if ( !is_taxonomy_hierarchical($taxonomy) ||
			'' !== $args['parent'] ) {
			$args['child_of'] = 0;
			$args['hierarchical'] = false;
			$args['pad_counts'] = false;
		}

		if ( 'all' == $args['get'] ) {
			$args['child_of'] = 0;
			$args['hide_empty'] = 0;
			$args['hierarchical'] = false;
			$args['pad_counts'] = false;
		}

		extract($args, EXTR_SKIP);

		$orderby = '';
		$order = '';

		$where = "tt.taxonomy IN ('" . $taxonomy . "')";
		$inclusions = '';
		$exclusions = '';
		$limits = '';

		$selects = array();
		switch ( $fields ) {
			case 'all':
				$selects = array('t.*', 'tt.*');
				break;
			case 'ids':
			case 'id=>parent':
				$selects = array('t.term_id', 'tt.parent', 'tt.count');
				break;
			case 'names':
				$selects = array('t.term_id', 'tt.parent', 'tt.count', 't.name');
				break;
			case 'count':
				$orderby = '';
				$order = '';
				$selects = array('COUNT(*)');
		}

		$_fields = $fields;

		$fields = implode( ', ', $selects );

		$join = "INNER JOIN $wpdb->term_taxonomy AS tt ON t.term_id = tt.term_id";

		$query = "SELECT $fields FROM $wpdb->terms AS t $join WHERE $where $orderby $order $limits";

		$fields = $_fields;

		$terms = $wpdb->get_results($query);

		// Update term counts to include children.
		if ( $pad_counts && 'all' == $fields )
			_pad_term_counts($terms, $taxonomy);

		// Make sure we show empty categories that have children.
		if ( true ) {
			foreach ( $terms as $k => $term ) {
				if ( ! $term->count ) {
					$children = _get_term_children($term->term_id, $terms, $taxonomies[0]);
					if ( is_array($children) )
						foreach ( $children as $child )
							if ( $child->count )
								continue 2;

					// It really is empty
					unset($terms[$k]);
				}
			}
		}
		reset ( $terms );

		return $terms;
	}

}