get_terms() returns an empty array

Question

I've read all the posts about displaying terms of a custom taxonomy and it's still not working. Ok, so here's the code:

<?php
//part of template-offer.php
$taxonomy = 'brand';
$term_args=array(
  'hide_empty' => false,
  'orderby' => 'name',
  'order' => 'ASC'
);
$tax_terms = get_terms($taxonomy,$term_args);
echo $tax_terms;
?>

And on the output I'm only getting an empty array. I'm staring at the code and can't find out why. I have both my custom post and taxonomy working, created some posts and terms:

<?php
//creating a custom taxonomy called 'brand'
add_action( 'init', 'create_custom_taxonomies', 0 );
function create_custom_taxonomies() {
    $labels = array(
        'name'              => _x( 'Brands', 'taxonomy general name' ),
        'singular_name'     => _x( 'Brand', 'taxonomy singular name' ),
        'search_items'      => __( 'Search Brands' ),
        'all_items'         => __( 'All Brands' ),
        'parent_item'       => __( 'Parent Brand' ),
        'parent_item_colon' => __( 'Parent Brand:' ),
        'edit_item'         => __( 'Edit Brand' ),
        'update_item'       => __( 'Update Brand' ),
        'add_new_item'      => __( 'Add New Brand' ),
        'new_item_name'     => __( 'New Brand Name' ),
        'menu_name'         => __( 'Brand' ),
    );
    $args = array(
        'hierarchical'      => true,
        'labels'            => $labels,
        'show_ui'           => true,
        'show_admin_column' => true,
        'query_var'         => true,
        'rewrite'           => array( 'slug' => 'brand' ),
    );
    register_taxonomy( 'brand', null , $args );
}


//creating a custom post type that is using 'brand' taxonomy
function create_post_type() {
    register_post_type( 'products',
        array(
        'labels' => array(
            'name' => __( 'Products' ),
            'singular_name' => __( 'Product' ),
            'add_new' => _x('Add New', 'products'),
            'add_new_item' => __('Add New Product'),
            'edit_item' => __('Edyt Product'),
            'new_item' => __('New Product'),
            'view_item' => __('View Product'),
            'search_items' => __('Search Product'),
            'not_found' =>  __('Nothing found'),
        ),
        'taxonomies' => array('brand'),
        'supports' => array('title', 'editor', 'thumbnail'),
        'public' => true,
        'has_archive' => true,
        'show_ui' => true,
        )
    );

}
add_action( 'init', 'create_post_type' );
?>

Your help will be highly appreciated. Have a nice day, Patryk

Answer 1

get_terms returns an array of objects. You cannot echo an array, if you do, you will just get Array(). What you can do is print_r($array) or var_dump($array) or echo json_encode($array) to see the data it contains.

Otherwise, to get single elements, e.g. the name, from the objects, you need to pass $tax_terms through a foreach loop to get the objects from each term and then from there you can also then echo the specific object you are after

Something like this will work

$tax_terms = get_terms( $taxonomy, $args );

foreach ( $tax_terms as $tax_term ) {

    echo $tax_term->name;

}