custom taxonomy hierarchical array/object?

I’ve been trying all night to get this to work, and it doesn’t seem to want to… it works perfectly when i do it with wp_list_categories() but i dont want a html list, i want an array to use in my code… using get_categories() does not return a hierarchical array to use.

here’s my code and output with wp_list_categories()
wp_list_categories( array(''hide_empty' => 0, 'hierarchical' => 1, 'taxonomy' => 'locations') );

• United States

• Alabama

• Birmingham
• Huntsville
• Mobile
• Montgomery

• Alaska

• Anchorage
• Fairbanks
• Juneau

• Arizona

• Phoenix
• Tucson

• Arkansas

• Fort Smith
• Little Rock

But when i do that with print_r() on the get_categories() i get this

$allcats=get_categories( array('hide_empty' => 0, 'hierarchical' => 1, 'taxonomy' => 'locations'));
print_r($allcats);

and the output is

Array
(
    [0] => stdClass Object
        (
            [term_id] => 30
            [name] => Alabama
            [slug] => al
            [term_group] => 0
            [term_taxonomy_id] => 30
            [taxonomy] => Locations
            [description] =>
            [parent] => 27
            [count] => 0
            [cat_ID] => 30
            [category_count] => 0
            [category_description] =>
            [cat_name] => Alabama
            [category_nicename] => al
            [category_parent] => 27
        )

    [1] => stdClass Object
        (
            [term_id] => 106
            [name] => Alaska
            [slug] => alaska
            [term_group] => 0
            [term_taxonomy_id] => 106
            [taxonomy] => Locations
            [description] =>
            [parent] => 27
            [count] => 0
            [cat_ID] => 106
            [category_count] => 0
            [category_description] =>
            [cat_name] => Alaska
            [category_nicename] => alaska
            [category_parent] => 27
        )

    [2] => stdClass Object
        (
            [term_id] => 171
            [name] => Anchorage
            [slug] => anchorage
            [term_group] => 0
            [term_taxonomy_id] => 171
            [taxonomy] => Locations
            [description] =>
            [parent] => 106
            [count] => 0
            [cat_ID] => 171
            [category_count] => 0
            [category_description] =>
            [cat_name] => Anchorage
            [category_nicename] => anchorage
            [category_parent] => 106
        )

    [3] => stdClass Object
        (
            [term_id] => 108
            [name] => Arizona
            [slug] => arizona
            [term_group] => 0
            [term_taxonomy_id] => 108
            [taxonomy] => Locations
            [description] =>
            [parent] => 27
            [count] => 0
            [cat_ID] => 108
            [category_count] => 0
            [category_description] =>
            [cat_name] => Arizona
            [category_nicename] => arizona
            [category_parent] => 27
        )

    [4] => stdClass Object
        (
            [term_id] => 118
            [name] => Arkansas
            [slug] => arkansas
            [term_group] => 0
            [term_taxonomy_id] => 118
            [taxonomy] => Locations
            [description] =>
            [parent] => 27
            [count] => 0
            [cat_ID] => 118
            [category_count] => 0
            [category_description] =>
            [cat_name] => Arkansas
            [category_nicename] => arkansas
            [category_parent] => 27
        )

    [5] => stdClass Object
        (
            [term_id] => 52
            [name] => Birmingham
            [slug] => birmingham
            [term_group] => 0
            [term_taxonomy_id] => 52
            [taxonomy] => Locations
            [description] =>
            [parent] => 30
            [count] => 0
            [cat_ID] => 52
            [category_count] => 0
            [category_description] =>
            [cat_name] => Birmingham
            [category_nicename] => birmingham
            [category_parent] => 30
        )

    [6] => stdClass Object
        (
            [term_id] => 172
            [name] => Fairbanks
            [slug] => fairbanks
            [term_group] => 0
            [term_taxonomy_id] => 172
            [taxonomy] => Locations
            [description] =>
            [parent] => 106
            [count] => 0
            [cat_ID] => 172
            [category_count] => 0
            [category_description] =>
            [cat_name] => Fairbanks
            [category_nicename] => fairbanks
            [category_parent] => 106
        )

    [7] => stdClass Object
        (
            [term_id] => 158
            [name] => Fort Smith
            [slug] => fort-smith
            [term_group] => 0
            [term_taxonomy_id] => 158
            [taxonomy] => Locations
            [description] =>
            [parent] => 118
            [count] => 0
            [cat_ID] => 158
            [category_count] => 0
            [category_description] =>
            [cat_name] => Fort Smith
            [category_nicename] => fort-smith
            [category_parent] => 118
        )

    [8] => stdClass Object
        (
            [term_id] => 70
            [name] => Huntsville
            [slug] => huntsville
            [term_group] => 0
            [term_taxonomy_id] => 70
            [taxonomy] => Locations
            [description] =>
            [parent] => 30
            [count] => 0
            [cat_ID] => 70
            [category_count] => 0
            [category_description] =>
            [cat_name] => Huntsville
            [category_nicename] => huntsville
            [category_parent] => 30
        )

    [9] => stdClass Object
        (
            [term_id] => 170
            [name] => Juneau
            [slug] => juneau
            [term_group] => 0
            [term_taxonomy_id] => 170
            [taxonomy] => Locations
            [description] =>
            [parent] => 106
            [count] => 0
            [cat_ID] => 170
            [category_count] => 0
            [category_description] =>
            [cat_name] => Juneau
            [category_nicename] => juneau
            [category_parent] => 106
        )

    [10] => stdClass Object
        (
            [term_id] => 157
            [name] => Little Rock
            [slug] => little-rock
            [term_group] => 0
            [term_taxonomy_id] => 157
            [taxonomy] => Locations
            [description] =>
            [parent] => 118
            [count] => 0
            [cat_ID] => 157
            [category_count] => 0
            [category_description] =>
            [cat_name] => Little Rock
            [category_nicename] => little-rock
            [category_parent] => 118
        )

    [11] => stdClass Object
        (
            [term_id] => 69
            [name] => Mobile
            [slug] => mobile
            [term_group] => 0
            [term_taxonomy_id] => 69
            [taxonomy] => Locations
            [description] =>
            [parent] => 30
            [count] => 0
            [cat_ID] => 69
            [category_count] => 0
            [category_description] =>
            [cat_name] => Mobile
            [category_nicename] => mobile
            [category_parent] => 30
        )

    [12] => stdClass Object
        (
            [term_id] => 72
            [name] => Montgomery
            [slug] => montgomery
            [term_group] => 0
            [term_taxonomy_id] => 72
            [taxonomy] => Locations
            [description] =>
            [parent] => 30
            [count] => 0
            [cat_ID] => 72
            [category_count] => 0
            [category_description] =>
            [cat_name] => Montgomery
            [category_nicename] => montgomery
            [category_parent] => 30
        )

    [13] => stdClass Object
        (
            [term_id] => 152
            [name] => Phoenix
            [slug] => phoenix
            [term_group] => 0
            [term_taxonomy_id] => 152
            [taxonomy] => Locations
            [description] =>
            [parent] => 108
            [count] => 0
            [cat_ID] => 152
            [category_count] => 0
            [category_description] =>
            [cat_name] => Phoenix
            [category_nicename] => phoenix
            [category_parent] => 108
        )

    [14] => stdClass Object
        (
            [term_id] => 153
            [name] => Tucson
            [slug] => tucson
            [term_group] => 0
            [term_taxonomy_id] => 153
            [taxonomy] => Locations
            [description] =>
            [parent] => 108
            [count] => 0
            [cat_ID] => 153
            [category_count] => 0
            [category_description] =>
            [cat_name] => Tucson
            [category_nicename] => tucson
            [category_parent] => 108
        )

    [15] => stdClass Object
        (
            [term_id] => 27
            [name] => United States
            [slug] => us
            [term_group] => 0
            [term_taxonomy_id] => 27
            [taxonomy] => Locations
            [description] =>
            [parent] => 0
            [count] => 1
            [cat_ID] => 27
            [category_count] => 1
            [category_description] =>
            [cat_name] => United States
            [category_nicename] => us
            [category_parent] => 0
        )

)

it seems that it is sorting by “cat_name” ASC instead of making a hierarchical array…