Return array of categories to php function

Question

I am looking for a function that will retrieve the names and ids of all categories that will output a checkbox, or give me the data so I can perform a loop.

<input type="checkbox" name="category" value="category_id" /> Category 1
<input type="checkbox" name="category" value="category_id" /> Category 2
<input type="checkbox" name="category" value="category_id" /> Category 3
<input type="checkbox" name="category" value="category_id" /> Category 4
<input type="checkbox" name="category" value="category_id" /> Category 5

Answer 1

this should do it:

$categories = get_categories();
foreach( $categories as $category ) { 
    echo '<input type="checkbox" name=' . $category->slug . '" value="' . $category->term_id . '" /> ' . $category->name . '<br />' . "\n";
}

and you can change/order the list by feeding arguments to get_categories(): http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/get_categories