[development] Should taxonomy_get_tree() return a structured array?

[Liam McDermott]

Hello list,

First: I know this list is rarely used for core development any more, so
if there's a better place for this, let me know!

What I'm trying to do: patch core to make forum-list.tpl.php output an
unordered list. To be semantically correct, sub-forums need to be
nested instead of that ghastly <div class="indent"> we currently use on
the forum front page.

The problem with doing this is taxonomy_get_tree() returns a flat array,
making it much harder to create a nested list than if it returned a
multi-dimensional array, where child terms are nested beneath their
parents. For example, instead of returning:

array(
   [0] => stdClass::__set_state(array(
     'name' => 'Child item',
     // Class containing child tax. term's information.
     parents => array(
       0 => '1',
     ),
   )),
   [1] => stdClass::__set_state(array(
     'name' => 'Parent item',
     // Class containing parent tax. term's information.
     parents => array(
       0 => '0',
     ),
   )),
);

It would be ideal if taxonomy_get_tree() returned something like:

array(
   [0] => array(
     'name' => 'Parent item',
     // Array containing parent tax. term's information.
     [0] => array(
       'name' => 'Child item',
       // Array containing child tax. term's information.
     ),
   ),
);

Alternatively the array of taxonomy terms could be changed, after the
fact, in template_preprocess_forum_list() but that seems like a kludge.
Surely taxonomy_get_tree() should just be outputting the correct thing
in the first place?

Hope this makes sense and I'd love to get some idea of how to proceed!

Kind Regards,
Liam McDermott.