Categories tree modifications

[Dan123]

Hi all!
I've been struggling with my categories for some time now and was wondering if somebody could help me figure it out. I am trying to modify my categories so every parent category would be in a div with ul of its subcategories, that's an easy part. Also I need to add class to the first ul and another attribute - data with incremental value for each ul and this is where I am lost, I have no idea how to do it.

To simplify, I want my categories with 2 parent categories to look like this:
<div class="col_3">
<a>Parent Cat</a>
<ul data="1" class="current">
<li>sub cat</li>
<li>sub cat</li>
</ul>
</div>

<div class="col_3">
<a>Parent Cat</a>
<ul data="2">
<li>sub cat</li>
<li>sub cat</li>
</ul>
</div>

My categories ul generator:

<?php

class zen_categories_ul_generator {
    var $root_category_id = 0,
    $max_level = 6,
    $data = array(),
    $root_start_string = '',
    $root_end_string = '',
    $parent_start_string = '',
    $parent_end_string = '',
    $div_start_string = '<div%s>',
    $div_end_string = '</div>',
    $parent_group_start_string = '<ul%s>',
    $parent_group_end_string = '</ul>',

    $child_start_string = '<li%s>',
    $child_end_string = '</li>',

    $spacer_string = '
	',
    $spacer_multiplier = 1;

    var $document_types_list = ' (3) ';// acceptable format example: ' (3, 4, 9, 22, 18) '

    function zen_categories_ul_generator($load_from_database = true)
    {
        global $languages_id, $db;
        $this->data = array();
        $categories_query = "select c.categories_id, cd.categories_name, c.parent_id
                             from " . TABLE_CATEGORIES . " c, " . TABLE_CATEGORIES_DESCRIPTION . " cd
                             where c.categories_id = cd.categories_id
                             and c.categories_status=1 " .
                             " and cd.language_id = '" . (int)$_SESSION['languages_id'] . "' " .
                             " order by c.parent_id, c.sort_order, cd.categories_name";
        $categories = $db->Execute($categories_query);
        while (!$categories->EOF) {
          $this->data[$categories->fields['parent_id']][$categories->fields['categories_id']] = array('name' => $categories->fields['categories_name'], 'count' => 0);
            $categories->MoveNext();
        }
    }

    function buildBranch($parent_id, $level = 1, $submenu=false) {
      if ($parent_id != '0') {
        $result = sprintf($this->parent_group_start_string, ($submenu==true) ? ' class="level'. ($level) . '"' : '' );
      }
        if (($this->data[$parent_id])) {
            foreach($this->data[$parent_id] as $category_id => $category) {
              $category_link = $category_id;
			  if (($this->data[$category_id])) {
                $result .= sprintf($this->div_start_string, ($submenu==true) ? ' class="col_3"' : '');
			  } else {
                if (($this->data[$category_id]) && ($submenu==false)) {
                  $result .= sprintf($this->parent_group_start_string, ($submenu==true) ? ' class="level'. ($level+1) . '"' : '');
                  $result .= sprintf($this->child_start_string, ($submenu==true) ? ' class="submenu"' : '');
                } else {
                  $result .= sprintf($this->child_start_string, '');
                }
			  }
              if ($level == 0) {
                $result .= $this->root_start_string;
              }
              $result .= str_repeat($this->spacer_string, $this->spacer_multiplier * $level) . '<a href="' . zen_href_link(FILENAME_DEFAULT, 'cPath=' . $category_link) . '">';
              $result .= $category['name'];
              $result .= '</a>';
              if ($level == 0) {
                $result .= $this->root_end_string;
              }
              if (($this->data[$category_id])) {
                $result .= $this->parent_end_string;
              }
              if (($this->data[$category_id]) && (($this->max_level == '0') || ($this->max_level > $level+1))) {
                $result .= $this->buildBranch($category_id, $level+1, $submenu);
              }
			  
			    if (($this->data[$category_id])) {
                $result .= $this->div_end_string;
			  } else {
                $result .= $this->child_end_string;
			  }
              
            }
        }
        if ($level > 0) {
          $result .= $this->parent_group_end_string;
        }
        return $result;
    }

    function buildTree($submenu=false)
    {
        return $this->buildBranch($this->root_category_id, '', $submenu);
    }
}
?>

I greatly appreciate any help!!!

[gjh42]

Categories Dressing from Free Addons will generate a correctly nested set of <ul> list(s), with ids for each <ul>. It doesn't give the precise structure you describe, but it will do the same job.

[Dan123]

Thank you gjh42, for looking into this for me!
But I found a much simpler solution, if anybody else needs to do something like this just use "preg_replace_callback" after loading and producing the menu list, with it you can replace whatever you want.
My function:

$count = 1;
$menulist = preg_replace_callback('/level1/', 'rep_count', $menulist);
function rep_count($matches) {
global $count;
return '#section' . $count++;
}
$menulist = str_replace('<ul data="#section1">','<ul data="#section1" class="current">',$menulist);