function test_get_categories($args = '') {
	if ( is_array($args) )
		$r = &$args;
	else
		parse_str($args, $r);

	$defaults = array('show_option_all' => '', 'orderby' => 'name',
		'order' => 'ASC', 'show_last_update' => 0, 'style' => 'list',
		'show_count' => 0, 'hide_empty' => 1, 'use_desc_for_title' => 1,
		'child_of' => 0, 'feed' => '', 'feed_image' => '', 'exclude' => '',
		'hierarchical' => true, 'title_li' => __('Categories'));
	$r = array_merge($defaults, $r);
	if ( !isset($r['pad_counts']) && $r['show_count'] && $r['hierarchical'] )
		$r['pad_counts'] = true;
	if ( isset($r['show_date']) )
		$r['include_last_update_time'] = $r['show_date'];
	extract($r);

	$categories = get_categories($r);
	
	return $categories;
	
}