Tree::Simple - A simple tree object

	use Tree::Simple;
  
	# make a tree root
	my $tree = Tree::Simple.new("0", $Tree::Simple::ROOT);
  
	# explicity add a child to it
	$tree.addChild(Tree::Simple.new("1"));
  
	# specify the parent when creating
	# an instance and it adds the child implicity
	my $sub_tree = Tree::Simple.new("2", $tree);
  
	# chain method calls
	$tree.getChild(0).addChild(Tree::Simple.new("1.1"));
  
	# add more than one child at a time
	$sub_tree.addChildren(
             Tree::Simple.new("2.1"),
             Tree::Simple.new("2.2")
	);

	# add siblings
	$sub_tree.addSibling(Tree::Simple.new("3"));
  
	# insert children a specified index
	$sub_tree.insertChild(1, Tree::Simple.new("2.1a"));
  
	# clean up circular references
	$tree.DESTROY();

 

This module in an fully object-oriented implementation of a simple n-ary tree. It is built upon the concept of parent-child relationships, so therefore every B<Tree::Simple> object has both a parent and a set of children (who themselves may have children, and so on). Every B<Tree::Simple> object also has siblings, as they are just the children of their immediate parent. It is can be used to model hierarchal information such as a file-system, the organizational structure of a company, an object inheritance hierarchy, versioned files from a version control system or even an abstract syntax tree for use in a parser. It makes no assumptions as to your intended usage, but instead simply provides the structure and means of accessing and traversing said structure. This module uses exceptions and a minimal Design By Contract style. All method arguments are required unless specified in the documentation, if a required argument is not defined an exception will usually be thrown. Many arguments are also required to be of a specific type, for instance the $parent argument to the constructor B<must> be a B<Tree::Simple> object or an object derived from B<Tree::Simple>, otherwise an exception is thrown. This may seems harsh to some, but this allows me to have the confidence that my code works as I intend, and for you to enjoy the same level of confidence when using this module. Note however that this module does not use any Exception or Error module, the exceptions are just strings thrown with die .

=over 4 =item B<ROOT> This class constant serves as a placeholder for the root of our tree. If a tree does not have a parent, then it is considered a root. =back

=head2 Constructor =over 4 =item B<new ($node, $parent)> The constructor accepts two arguments a $node value and an optional $parent . The $node value can be any scalar value (which includes references and objects). The optional $parent value must be a B<Tree::Simple> object, or an object derived from B<Tree::Simple>. Setting this value implies that your new tree is a child of the parent tree, and therefore adds it to the parent's children. If the $parent is not specified then its value defaults to ROOT. =back =head2 Mutator Methods =over 4 =item B<setNodeValue ($node_value)> This sets the node value to the scalar $node_value , an exception is thrown if $node_value is not defined. =item B<setUID ($uid)> This allows you to set your own unique ID for this specific Tree::Simple object. A default value derived from the object's hex address is provided for you, so use of this method is entirely optional. It is the responsibility of the user to ensure the value's uniqueness, all that is tested by this method is that $uid is a true value (evaluates to true in a boolean context). For even more information about the Tree::Simple UID see the getUID method. =item B<addChild ($tree)> This method accepts only B<Tree::Simple> objects or objects derived from B<Tree::Simple>, an exception is thrown otherwise. This method will append the given $tree to the end of it's children list, and set up the correct parent-child relationships. This method is set up to return its invocant so that method call chaining can be possible. Such as:

  my $tree = Tree::Simple.new("root").addChild(Tree::Simple.new("child one"));

 

Or the more complex:

  my $tree = Tree::Simple.new("root").addChild(
                         Tree::Simple.new("1.0").addChild(
                                     Tree::Simple.new("1.0.1")     
                                     )
                         );

 

=item B<addChildren (@trees)> This method accepts an array of B<Tree::Simple> objects, and adds them to it's children list. Like addChild this method will return its invocant to allow for method call chaining. =item B<insertChild ($index, $tree)> This method accepts a numeric $index and a B<Tree::Simple> object ( $tree ), and inserts the $tree into the children list at the specified $index . This results in the shifting down of all children after the $index . The $index is checked to be sure it is the bounds of the child list, if it out of bounds an exception is thrown. The $tree argument's type is verified to be a B<Tree::Simple> or B<Tree::Simple> derived object, if this condition fails, an exception is thrown. =item B<insertChildren ($index, @trees)> This method functions much as insertChild does, but instead of inserting a single B<Tree::Simple>, it inserts an array of B<Tree::Simple> objects. It too bounds checks the value of $index and type checks the objects in @trees just as insertChild does. =item B<removeChild> ($child | $index)> Accepts two different arguemnts. If given a B<Tree::Simple> object ( $child ), this method finds that specific $child by comparing it with all the other children until it finds a match. At which point the $child is removed. If no match is found, and exception is thrown. If a non-B<Tree::Simple> object is given as the $child argument, an exception is thrown. This method also accepts a numeric $index and removes the child found at that index from it's list of children. The $index is bounds checked, if this condition fail, an exception is thrown. When a child is removed, it results in the shifting up of all children after it, and the removed child is returned. The removed child is properly disconnected from the tree and all its references to its old parent are removed. However, in order to properly clean up and circular references the removed child might have, it is advised to call it's DESTROY method. See the L<CIRCULAR REFERENCES> section for more information. =item B<addSibling ($tree)> =item B<addSiblings (@trees)> =item B<insertSibling ($index, $tree)> =item B<insertSiblings ($index, @trees)> The addSibling , addSiblings , insertSibling and insertSiblings methods pass along their arguments to the addChild , addChildren , insertChild and insertChildren methods of their parent object respectively. This eliminates the need to overload these methods in subclasses which may have specialized versions of the *Child(ren) methods. The one exceptions is that if an attempt it made to add or insert siblings to the B<ROOT> of the tree then an exception is thrown. =back B<NOTE:> There is no removeSibling method as I felt it was probably a bad idea. The same effect can be achieved by manual upwards traversal. =head2 Accessor Methods =over 4 =item B<getNodeValue> This returns the value stored in the object's node field. =item B<getUID> This returns the unique ID associated with this particular tree. This can be custom set using the setUID method, or you can just use the default. The default is the hex-address extracted from the stringified Tree::Simple object. This may not be a I<universally> unique identifier, but it should be adequate for at least the current instance of your perl interpreter. If you need a UUID, one can be generated with an outside module (there are

    many to choose from on CPAN) and the C<setUID> method (see above).

 

=item B<getChild ($index)> This returns the child (a B<Tree::Simple> object) found at the specified $index . Note that we do use standard zero-based array indexing. =item B<getAllChildren> This returns an array of all the children (all B<Tree::Simple> objects). It will return an array reference in scalar context. =item B<getSibling ($index)> =item B<getAllSiblings> Much like addSibling and addSiblings , these two methods simply call getChild and getAllChildren on the invocant's parent. =item B<getDepth> Returns a number representing the invocant's depth within the hierarchy of B<Tree::Simple> objects. B<NOTE:> A ROOT tree has the depth of -1. This be because Tree::Simple assumes that a tree's root will usually not contain data, but just be an anchor for the data-containing branches. This may not be intuitive in all cases, so I mention it here. =item B<getParent> Returns the invocant's parent, which could be either B<ROOT> or a B<Tree::Simple> object. =item B<getHeight> Returns a number representing the length of the longest path from the current tree to the furthest leaf node. =item B<getWidth> Returns the a number representing the breadth of the current tree, basically it is a count of all the leaf nodes. =item B<getChildCount> Returns the number of children the invocant contains. =item B<getIndex> Returns the index of this tree within its parent's child list. Returns -1 if the tree is the root. =back =head2 Predicate Methods =over 4 =item B<isLeaf> Returns true (1) if the invocant does not have any children, false (0) otherwise. =item B<isRoot> Returns true (1) if the invocant's "parent" field is B<ROOT>, returns false (0) otherwise. =back =head2 Recursive Methods =over 4 =item B<traverse ($func, ?$postfunc)> This method accepts two arguments a mandatory $func and an optional $postfunc . If the argument $func is not defined then an exception is thrown. If $func or $postfunc are not in fact CODE references then an exception is thrown. The function $func is then applied recursively to all the children of the invocant. If given, the function $postfunc will be applied to each child after the child's children have been traversed. Here is an example of a traversal function that will print out the hierarchy as a tabbed in list.

  $tree.traverse(sub {
      my ($_tree) = @_;
      print (("\t" x $_tree.getDepth()), $_tree.getNodeValue(), "\n");
  });

 

Here is an example of a traversal function that will print out the hierarchy in an XML-style format.

  $tree.traverse(sub {
      my ($_tree) = @_;
      print ((' ' x $_tree.getDepth()),
              '<', $_tree.getNodeValue(),'>',"\n");
  },
  sub {
      my ($_tree) = @_;
      print ((' ' x $_tree.getDepth()),
              '</', $_tree.getNodeValue(),'>',"\n");
  });
        
 

=item B<size> Returns the total number of nodes in the current tree and all its sub-trees. =item B<height> This method has also been B<deprecated> in favor of the getHeight method above, it remains as an alias to getHeight for backwards compatability. B<NOTE:> This is also no longer a recursive method which get's it's value on demand, but a value stored in the Tree::Simple object itself, hopefully making it much more efficient and usable. =back =head2 Visitor Methods =over 4 =item B<accept ($visitor)> It accepts either a B<Tree::Simple::Visitor> object (which includes classes derived

    from B<Tree::Simple::Visitor>), or an object who has the C<visit> method available 
    (tested with C<$visitor-E<gt>can('visit')>). If these qualifications are not met, 
    and exception will be thrown. We then run the Visitor's C<visit> method giving the 
    current tree as its argument. 

 

I have also created a number of Visitor objects and packaged them into the B<Tree::Simple::VisitorFactory>. =back =head2 Cloning Methods Cloning a tree can be an extremly expensive operation for large trees, so we provide two options for cloning, a deep clone and a shallow clone. When a Tree::Simple object is cloned, the node is deep-copied in the following manner. If we find a normal scalar value (non-reference), we simply copy it. If we find an object, we attempt to call clone on it, otherwise we just copy the reference (since we assume the object does not want to be cloned). If we find a SCALAR, REF reference we copy the value contained within it. If we find a HASH or ARRAY reference we copy the reference and recursively copy all the elements within it (following these exact guidelines). We also do our best to assure that circular references are cloned only once and connections restored correctly. This cloning will not be able to copy CODE, RegExp and GLOB references, as they are pretty much impossible to clone. We also do not handle tied objects, and they will simply be copied as plain references, and not re- tied . =over 4 =item B<clone> The clone method does a full deep-copy clone of the object, calling clone recursively on all its children. This does not call clone on the parent tree however. Doing this would result in a slowly degenerating spiral of recursive death, so it is not recommended and therefore not implemented. What happens is that the tree instance that clone is actually called upon is detached from the tree, and becomes a root node, all if the cloned children are then attached as children of that tree. I personally think this is more intuitive then to have the cloning crawl back I<up> the tree is not what I think most people would expect. =item B<cloneShallow> This method is an alternate option to the plain clone method. This method allows the cloning of single B<Tree::Simple> object while retaining connections to the rest of the tree/hierarchy. =back =head2 Misc. Methods =over 4 =item B<DESTROY> To avoid memory leaks through uncleaned-up circular references, we implement the DESTROY method. This method will attempt to call DESTROY on each of its children (if it has any). This will result in a cascade of calls to DESTROY on down the tree. It also cleans up it's parental relations as well. Because of perl's reference counting scheme and how that interacts with circular references, if you want an object to be properly reaped you should manually call DESTROY . This is especially nessecary if your object has any children. See the section on L<CIRCULAR REFERENCES> for more information. =item B<fixDepth> Tree::Simple will manage your tree's depth field for you using this method. You should never need to call it on your own, however if you ever did need to, here is it. Running this method will traverse your all the invocant's sub-trees correcting the depth as it goes. =item B<fixHeight> Tree::Simple will manage your tree's height field for you using this method. You should never need to call it on your own, however if you ever did need to, here is it. Running this method will correct the heights of the current tree and all it's ancestors. =item B<fixWidth> Tree::Simple will manage your tree's width field for you using this method. You should never need to call it on your own, however if you ever did need to, here is it. Running this method will correct the widths of the current tree and all it's ancestors. =back =head2 Private Methods I would not normally document private methods, but in case you need to subclass Tree::Simple, here they are. =over 4 =item B<_init ($node, $parent, $children)> This method is here largely to facilitate subclassing. This method is called by new to initialize the object, where new's primary responsibility is creating the instance. =item B<!setParent ($parent)> This method sets up the parental relationship. It is for internal use only. =item B<_setHeight ($child)> This method will set the height field based upon the height of the given $child . =back

I have revised the model by which Tree::Simple deals with ciruclar references. In the past all circular references had to be manually destroyed by calling DESTROY. The call to DESTROY would then call DESTROY on all the children, and therefore cascade down the tree. This however was not always what was needed, nor what made sense, so I have now revised the model to handle things in what I feel is a more consistent and sane way. Circular references are now managed with the simple idea that the parent makes the descisions for the child. This means that child-to-parent references are weak, while parent-to-child references are strong. So if a parent is destroyed it will force all it's children to detach from it, however, if a child is destroyed it will not be detached from it's parent. =head2 Optional Weak References By default, you are still required to call DESTROY in order for things to happen. However I have now added the option to use weak references, which alleviates the need for the manual call to DESTROY and allows Tree::Simple to manage this automatically. This is accomplished with a compile time setting like this:

  use Tree::Simple 'use_weak_refs';
  
 

And from that point on Tree::Simple will use weak references to allow for perl's reference counting to clean things up properly. For those who are unfamilar with weak references, and how they affect the reference counts, here is a simple illustration. First is the normal model that Tree::Simple uses:

 +---------------+
 | Tree::Simple1 |<---------------------+
 +---------------+                      |
 | parent        |                      |
 | children      |-+                    |
 +---------------+ |                    |
                   |                    |
                   |  +---------------+ |
                   +.| Tree::Simple2 | |
                      +---------------+ |
                      | parent        |-+
                      | children      |
                      +---------------+
                      
 

Here, Tree::Simple1 has a reference count of 2 (one for the original variable it is assigned to, and one for the parent reference in Tree::Simple2), and Tree::Simple2 has a reference count of 1 (for the child reference in Tree::Simple2). Now, with weak references:

 +---------------+
 | Tree::Simple1 |.......................
 +---------------+                      :
 | parent        |                      :
 | children      |-+                    : <--[ weak reference ]
 +---------------+ |                    :
                   |                    :
                   |  +---------------+ :
                   +.| Tree::Simple2 | :
                      +---------------+ :
                      | parent        |..
                      | children      |
                      +---------------+   
                      
 

Now Tree::Simple1 has a reference count of 1 (for the variable it is assigned to) and 1 weakened reference (for the parent reference in Tree::Simple2). And Tree::Simple2 has a reference count of 1, just as before.

None that I am aware of. The code is pretty thoroughly tested (see L<CODE COVERAGE> below) and is based on an (non-publicly released) module which I had used in production systems for about 3 years without incident. Of course, if you find a bug, let me know, and I will be sure to fix it.

I have written a number of other modules which use or augment this module, they are describes below and available on CPAN. =over 4 =item L<Tree::Parser> - A module for parsing formatted files into Tree::Simple hierarchies. =item L<Tree::Simple::View> - A set of classes for viewing Tree::Simple hierarchies in various output formats. =item L<Tree::Simple::VisitorFactory> - A set of several useful Visitor objects for Tree::Simple objects. =item L<Tree::Binary> - If you are looking for a binary tree, this you might want to check this one out. =back Also, the author of L<Data::TreeDumper> and I have worked together to make sure that B<Tree::Simple> and his module work well together. If you need a quick and handy way to dump out a Tree::Simple heirarchy, this module does an excellent job (and plenty more as well). I have also recently stumbled upon some packaged distributions of Tree::Simple for the various Unix flavors. Here are some links: =over 4 =back

=over 4 =item Thanks to Nadim Ibn Hamouda El Khemir for making L<Data::TreeDumper> work with B<Tree::Simple>. =item Thanks to Brett Nuske for his idea for the getUID and setUID methods. =item Thanks to whomever submitted the memory leak bug to RT (#7512). =item Thanks to Mark Thomas for his insight into how to best handle the I<height> and I<width> properties without unessecary recursion. =item Thanks for Mark Lawrence for the &traverse post-func patch, tests and docs. =back

Original Authors of Perl 5 version on CPAN Stevan Little, E<lt>stevan@iinteractive.comE<gt> Rob Kinyon, E<lt>rob@iinteractive.comE<gt> Current Author Philip mabon, E<lt>philipmabon@gmail.comE<gt>

Copyright 2010 by Philip mabon This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. =cut