Author: Christoph Glur
Date: 2025-08-25

# data.tree sample applications

#### Christoph Glur

#### 2025-08-25

# Introduction

This vignette gives you a quick introduction to data.tree applications. We took care to keep the examples simple enough so non-specialists can follow them. The price for this is, obviously, that the examples are often simple compared to real-life applications.

If you are using data.tree for things not listed here, and if you believe this is of general interest, then please do drop us a note, so we can include your application in a future version of this vignette.

# World PopulationTreeMap (visualization)

This example is inspired by the examples of the treemap package.

You’ll learn how to

- convert a data.frame to a data.tree structure
- navigate a tree and locate specific nodes
- use `Aggregate` and `Cumulate`
- manipulate an existing tree, e.g. by using the `Prune` method

## Original Example, to be improved

The original example visualizes the world population as a tree map.

    library(treemap)
    data(GNI2014)
    treemap(GNI2014,
           index=c("continent", "iso3"),
           vSize="population",
           vColor="GNI",
           type="value")

As there are many countries, the chart gets clustered with many very small boxes. In this example, we will limit the number of countries and sum the remaining population in a catch-all country called “Other”.

We use data.tree to do this aggregation.

## Convert from data.frame

First, let’s convert the population data into a data.tree structure:

    library(data.tree)
    GNI2014$continent <- as.character(GNI2014$continent)
    GNI2014$pathString <- paste("world", GNI2014$continent, GNI2014$country, sep = "/")
    tree <- as.Node(GNI2014[,])
    print(tree, pruneMethod = "dist", limit = 20)

    ##                        levelName
    ## 1  world
    ## 2   ¦--North America
    ## 3   ¦   ¦--Bermuda
    ## 4   ¦   ¦--United States
    ## 5   ¦   °--... 22 nodes w/ 0 sub
    ## 6   ¦--Europe
    ## 7   ¦   ¦--Norway
    ## 8   ¦   ¦--Switzerland
    ## 9   ¦   °--... 39 nodes w/ 0 sub
    ## 10  ¦--Asia
    ## 11  ¦   ¦--Qatar
    ## 12  ¦   ¦--Macao SAR, China
    ## 13  ¦   °--... 45 nodes w/ 0 sub
    ## 14  ¦--Oceania
    ## 15  ¦   ¦--Australia
    ## 16  ¦   ¦--New Zealand
    ## 17  ¦   °--... 11 nodes w/ 0 sub
    ## 18  ¦--South America
    ## 19  ¦   ¦--Uruguay
    ## 20  ¦   ¦--Chile
    ## 21  ¦   °--... 10 nodes w/ 0 sub
    ## 22  ¦--Seven seas (open ocean)
    ## 23  ¦   ¦--Seychelles
    ## 24  ¦   ¦--Mauritius
    ## 25  ¦   °--... 1 nodes w/ 0 sub
    ## 26  °--Africa
    ## 27      °--... 48 nodes w/ 0 sub

We can also navigate the tree to find the population of a specific country. Luckily, RStudio is quite helpful with its code completion (use `CTRL + SPACE`):

    tree$Europe$Switzerland$population

    ## [1] 7604467

Or, we can look at a sub-tree:

    northAm <- tree$`North America`
    Sort(northAm, "GNI", decreasing = TRUE)
    print(northAm, "iso3", "population", "GNI", limit = 12)

    ##                    levelName iso3 population    GNI
    ## 1  North America                          NA     NA
    ## 2   ¦--Bermuda                BMU      67837 106140
    ## 3   ¦--United States          USA  313973000  55200
    ## 4   ¦--Canada                 CAN   33487208  51630
    ## 5   ¦--Bahamas, The           BHS     309156  20980
    ## 6   ¦--Trinidad and Tobago    TTO    1310000  20070
    ## 7   ¦--Puerto Rico            PRI    3971020  19310
    ## 8   ¦--Barbados               BRB     284589  15310
    ## 9   ¦--St. Kitts and Nevis    KNA      40131  14920
    ## 10  ¦--Antigua and Barbuda    ATG      85632  13300
    ## 11  ¦--Panama                 PAN    3360474  11130
    ## 12  °--... 14 nodes w/ 0 sub              NA     NA

Or, we can find out what is the country with the largest GNI:

    maxGNI <- Aggregate(tree, "GNI", max)
    #same thing, in a more traditional way:
    maxGNI <- max(sapply(tree$leaves, function(x) x$GNI))

    tree$Get("name", filterFun = function(x) x$isLeaf && x$GNI == maxGNI)

    ##   Bermuda
    ## "Bermuda"

## Aggregate and Cumulate

We aggregate the population. For non-leaves, this will recursively iterate through children, and cache the result in the `population` field.

    tree$Do(function(x) {
            x$population <- Aggregate(node = x,
            attribute = "population",
            aggFun = sum)
            },
         traversal = "post-order")

Next, we sort each node by population:

    Sort(tree, attribute = "population", decreasing = TRUE, recursive = TRUE)

Finally, we cumulate among siblings, and store the running sum in an attribute called `cumPop`:

    tree$Do(function(x) x$cumPop <- Cumulate(x, "population", sum))

The tree now looks like this:

    print(tree, "population", "cumPop", pruneMethod = "dist", limit = 20)

    ##                        levelName population     cumPop
    ## 1  world                         6683146875 6683146875
    ## 2   ¦--Asia                      4033277009 4033277009
    ## 3   ¦   ¦--China                 1338612970 1338612970
    ## 4   ¦   ¦--India                 1166079220 2504692190
    ## 5   ¦   °--... 45 nodes w/ 0 sub         NA         NA
    ## 6   ¦--Africa                     962382035 4995659044
    ## 7   ¦   ¦--Nigeria                149229090  149229090
    ## 8   ¦   ¦--Ethiopia                85237338  234466428
    ## 9   ¦   °--... 46 nodes w/ 0 sub         NA         NA
    ## 10  ¦--Europe                     728669949 5724328993
    ## 11  ¦   ¦--Russian Federation     140041247  140041247
    ## 12  ¦   ¦--Germany                 82329758  222371005
    ## 13  ¦   °--... 39 nodes w/ 0 sub         NA         NA
    ## 14  ¦--North America              528748158 6253077151
    ## 15  ¦   ¦--United States          313973000  313973000
    ## 16  ¦   ¦--Mexico                 111211789  425184789
    ## 17  ¦   °--... 22 nodes w/ 0 sub         NA         NA
    ## 18  ¦--South America              394352338 6647429489
    ## 19  ¦   ¦--Brazil                 198739269  198739269
    ## 20  ¦   ¦--Colombia                45644023  244383292
    ## 21  ¦   °--... 10 nodes w/ 0 sub         NA         NA
    ## 22  ¦--Oceania                     33949312 6681378801
    ## 23  ¦   ¦--Australia               21262641   21262641
    ## 24  ¦   ¦--Papua New Guinea         6057263   27319904
    ## 25  ¦   °--... 11 nodes w/ 0 sub         NA         NA
    ## 26  °--Seven seas (open ocean)      1768074 6683146875
    ## 27      °--... 3 nodes w/ 0 sub          NA         NA

## Prune

The previous steps were done to define our threshold: big countries should be displayed, while small ones should be grouped together. This lets us define a pruning function that will allow a maximum of 7 countries per continent, and that will prune all countries making up less than 90% of a continent’s population.

We would like to store the original number of countries for further use:

    tree$Do(function(x) x$origCount <- x$count)

We are now ready to prune. This is done by defining a pruning function, returning ‘FALSE’ for all countries that should be combined:

    myPruneFun <- function(x, cutoff = 0.9, maxCountries = 7) {
      if (isNotLeaf(x)) return (TRUE)
      if (x$position > maxCountries) return (FALSE)
      return (x$cumPop < (x$parent$population * cutoff))
    }

We clone the tree, because we might want to play around with different parameters:

    treeClone <- Clone(tree, pruneFun = myPruneFun)
    print(treeClone$Oceania, "population", pruneMethod = "simple", limit = 20)

    ##              levelName population
    ## 1 Oceania                33949312
    ## 2  ¦--Australia          21262641
    ## 3  °--Papua New Guinea    6057263

Finally, we need to sum countries that we pruned away into a new “Other” node:

    treeClone$Do(function(x) {
      missing <- x$population - sum(sapply(x$children, function(x) x$population))
      other <- x$AddChild("Other")
      other$iso3 <- paste0("OTH(", x$origCount, ")")
      other$country <- "Other"
      other$continent <- x$name
      other$GNI <- 0
      other$population <- missing
    },
    filterFun = function(x) x$level == 2
    )

    print(treeClone$Oceania, "population", pruneMethod = "simple", limit = 20)

    ##              levelName population
    ## 1 Oceania                33949312
    ## 2  ¦--Australia          21262641
    ## 3  ¦--Papua New Guinea    6057263
    ## 4  °--Other               6629408

## Plot

### Plotting the treemap

In order to plot the treemap, we need to convert the data.tree structure back to a data.frame:

    df <- ToDataFrameTable(treeClone, "iso3", "country", "continent", "population", "GNI")

    treemap(df,
            index=c("continent", "iso3"),
            vSize="population",
            vColor="GNI",
            type="value")

### Plot as dendrogram

Just for fun, and for no reason other than to demonstrate conversion to dendrogram, we can plot this in a very unusual way:

    plot(as.dendrogram(treeClone, heightAttribute = "population"))

## Further developments

Obviously, we should also aggregate the GNI as a weighted average. Namely, we should do this for the OTH catch-all countries that we add to the tree.

# Portfolio Breakdown (finance)

In this example, we show how to display an investment portfolio as a hierarchic breakdown into asset classes. You’ll see:

- how you can re-use a traversal
- advanced use of `Aggregate`
- how to add default attribute formatters to your tree

## Convert from data.frame

    fileName <- system.file("extdata", "portfolio.csv", package="data.tree")
    pfodf <- read.csv(fileName, stringsAsFactors = FALSE)
    head(pfodf)

    ##           ISIN                                     Name Ccy Type Duration
    ## 1 LI0015327682          LGT Money Market Fund (CHF) - B CHF Fund       NA
    ## 2 LI0214880598        CS (Lie) Money Market Fund EUR EB EUR Fund       NA
    ## 3 LI0214880689        CS (Lie) Money Market Fund USD EB USD Fund       NA
    ## 4 LU0243957825    Invesco Euro Corporate Bond A EUR Acc EUR Fund     5.10
    ## 5 LU0408877412 JPM Euro Gov Sh. Duration Bd A (acc)-EUR EUR Fund     2.45
    ## 6 LU0376989207 Aberdeen Global Sel Emerg Mkt Bd A2 HEUR EUR Fund     6.80
    ##   Weight AssetCategory AssetClass        SubAssetClass
    ## 1  0.030          Cash        CHF
    ## 2  0.060          Cash        EUR
    ## 3  0.020          Cash        USD
    ## 4  0.120  Fixed Income        EUR Sov. and Corp. Bonds
    ## 5  0.065  Fixed Income        EUR Sov. and Corp. Bonds
    ## 6  0.030  Fixed Income        EUR       Em. Mkts Bonds

Let us convert the data.frame to a data.tree structure. Here, we use again the path string method. For other options, see `?as.Node.data.frame`

    pfodf$pathString <- paste("portfolio",
                              pfodf$AssetCategory,
                              pfodf$AssetClass,
                              pfodf$SubAssetClass,
                              pfodf$ISIN,
                              sep = "/")
    pfo <- as.Node(pfodf)

## Aggregate

To calculate the weight per asset class, we use the `Aggregate` method:

    t <- Traverse(pfo, traversal = "post-order")
    Do(t, function(x) x$Weight <- Aggregate(node = x, attribute = "Weight", aggFun = sum))

We now calculate the `WeightOfParent`,

    Do(t, function(x) x$WeightOfParent <- x$Weight / x$parent$Weight)

Duration is a bit more complicated, as this is a concept that applies only to the fixed income asset class. Note that, in the second statement, we are reusing the traversal from above.

    pfo$Do(function(x) x$Duration <- ifelse(is.null(x$Duration), 0, x$Duration), filterFun = isLeaf)
    Do(t, function(x) x$Duration <- Aggregate(x, function(x) x$WeightOfParent * x$Duration, sum))

## Formatters

We can add default formatters to our data.tree structure. Here, we add them to the root, but we might as well add them to any Node in the tree.

    SetFormat(pfo, "WeightOfParent", function(x) FormatPercent(x, digits = 1))
    SetFormat(pfo, "Weight", FormatPercent)

    FormatDuration <- function(x) {
      if (x != 0) res <- FormatFixedDecimal(x, digits = 1)
      else res <- ""
      return (res)
    }

    SetFormat(pfo, "Duration", FormatDuration)

These formatter functions will be used when printing a data.tree structure.

## Print

    #Print
    print(pfo,
          "Weight",
          "WeightOfParent",
          "Duration",
          filterFun = function(x) !x$isLeaf)

    ##                           levelName   Weight WeightOfParent Duration
    ## 1  portfolio                        100.00 %                     0.8
    ## 2   ¦--Cash                          11.00 %         11.0 %
    ## 3   ¦   ¦--CHF                        3.00 %         27.3 %
    ## 4   ¦   ¦--EUR                        6.00 %         54.5 %
    ## 5   ¦   °--USD                        2.00 %         18.2 %
    ## 6   ¦--Fixed Income                  28.50 %         28.5 %      3.0
    ## 7   ¦   ¦--EUR                       26.00 %         91.2 %      3.1
    ## 8   ¦   ¦   ¦--Sov. and Corp. Bonds  18.50 %         71.2 %      2.4
    ## 9   ¦   ¦   ¦--Em. Mkts Bonds         3.00 %         11.5 %      6.8
    ## 10  ¦   ¦   °--High Yield Bonds       4.50 %         17.3 %      3.4
    ## 11  ¦   °--USD                        2.50 %          8.8 %      1.6
    ## 12  ¦       °--High Yield Bonds       2.50 %        100.0 %      1.6
    ## 13  ¦--Equities                      40.00 %         40.0 %
    ## 14  ¦   ¦--Switzerland                6.00 %         15.0 %
    ## 15  ¦   ¦--Euroland                  14.50 %         36.2 %
    ## 16  ¦   ¦--US                         8.10 %         20.2 %
    ## 17  ¦   ¦--UK                         0.90 %          2.2 %
    ## 18  ¦   ¦--Japan                      3.00 %          7.5 %
    ## 19  ¦   ¦--Australia                  2.00 %          5.0 %
    ## 20  ¦   °--Emerging Markets           5.50 %         13.7 %
    ## 21  °--Alternative Investments       20.50 %         20.5 %
    ## 22      ¦--Real Estate                5.50 %         26.8 %
    ## 23      ¦   °--Eurozone               5.50 %        100.0 %
    ## 24      ¦--Hedge Funds               10.50 %         51.2 %
    ## 25      °--Commodities                4.50 %         22.0 %

# ID3 (machine learning)

This example shows you the following:

- How to build a data.tree structure in an algorithm
- How to prune a tree
- How to use data.tree to develop learning algorithms

Thanks a lot for all the helpful comments made by Holger von Jouanne-Diedrich.

Classification trees are very popular these days. If you have never come across them, you might be interested in classification trees. These models let you classify observations (e.g. things, outcomes) according to the observations’ qualities, called features. Essentially, all of these models consist of creating a tree, where each node acts as a router. You insert your mushroom instance at the root of the tree, and then, depending on the mushroom’s features (size, points, color, etc.), you follow along a different path, until a leaf node spits out your mushroom’s class, i.e. whether it’s edible or not.

There are two different steps involved in using such a model: training (i.e. constructing the tree), and predicting (i.e. using the tree to predict whether a given mushroom is poisonous). This example provides code to do both, using one of the very early algorithms to classify data according to discrete features: ID3. It lends itself well for this example, but of course today there are much more elaborate and refined algorithms available.

## ID3 Introduction

During the prediction step, each node routes our mushroom according to a feature. But how do we chose the feature? Should we first separate our set according to color or size? That is where classification models differ.

In ID3, we pick, at each node, the feature with the highest Information Gain. In a nutshell, this is the feature which splits the sample in the possibly purest subsets. For example, in the case of mushrooms, dots might be a more sensible feature than organic.

### Purity and Entropy

    IsPure <- function(data) {
      length(unique(data[,ncol(data)])) == 1
    }

The entropy is a measure of the purity of a dataset.

    Entropy <- function( vls ) {
      res <- vls/sum(vls) * log2(vls/sum(vls))
      res[vls == 0] <- 0
      -sum(res)
    }

### Information Gain

Mathematically, the information gain IG is defined as:

\[ IG(T,a) = H(T)-\sum_{v\in vals(a)}\frac{|\{\textbf{x}\in T|x_a=v\}|}{|T|} \cdot H(\{\textbf{x}\in T|x_a=v\}) \]

In words, the information gain measures the difference between the entropy before the split, and the weighted sum of the entropies after the split.

So, let’s rewrite that in R:

    InformationGain <- function( tble ) {
      entropyBefore <- Entropy(colSums(tble))
      s <- rowSums(tble)
      entropyAfter <- sum (s / sum(s) * apply(tble, MARGIN = 1, FUN = Entropy ))
      informationGain <- entropyBefore - entropyAfter
      return (informationGain)
    }

## Training

We are all set for the ID3 training algorithm.

### Pseudo code

We start with the entire training data, and with a root. Then:

1. if the data-set is pure (e.g. all toxic), then
   1. construct a leaf having the name of the class (e.g. ‘toxic’)
2. else
   1. choose the feature with the highest information gain (e.g. ‘color’)
   2. for each value of that feature (e.g. ‘red’, ‘brown’, ‘green’)
      1. take the subset of the data-set having that feature value
      2. construct a child node having the name of that feature value (e.g. ‘red’)
      3. call the algorithm recursively on the child node and the subset

### Implementation in R with the data.tree package

For the following implementation, we assume that the classifying features are in columns 1 to n-1, whereas the class (the edibility) is in the last column.

    TrainID3 <- function(node, data) {

      node$obsCount <- nrow(data)

      #if the data-set is pure (e.g. all toxic), then
      if (IsPure(data)) {
        #construct a leaf having the name of the pure feature (e.g. 'toxic')
        child <- node$AddChild(unique(data[,ncol(data)]))
        node$feature <- tail(names(data), 1)
        child$obsCount <- nrow(data)
        child$feature <- ''
      } else {
        #calculate the information gain
        ig <- sapply(colnames(data)[-ncol(data)],
                function(x) InformationGain(
                  table(data[,x], data[,ncol(data)])
                  )
                )
        #chose the feature with the highest information gain (e.g. 'color')
        #if more than one feature have the same information gain, then take
        #the first one
        feature <- names(which.max(ig))
        node$feature <- feature

        #take the subset of the data-set having that feature value

        childObs <- split(data[ ,names(data) != feature, drop = FALSE],
                          data[ ,feature],
                          drop = TRUE)

        for(i in 1:length(childObs)) {
          #construct a child having the name of that feature value (e.g. 'red')
          child <- node$AddChild(names(childObs)[i])

          #call the algorithm recursively on the child and the subset
          TrainID3(child, childObs[[i]])
        }

      }

    }

### Training with data

Our training data looks like this:

    library(data.tree)
    data(mushroom)
    mushroom

    ##   color  size points edibility
    ## 1   red small    yes     toxic
    ## 2 brown small     no    edible
    ## 3 brown large    yes    edible
    ## 4 green small     no    edible
    ## 5   red large     no    edible

Indeed, a bit small. But you get the idea.

We are ready to train our decision tree by running the function:

    tree <- Node$new("mushroom")
    TrainID3(tree, mushroom)
    print(tree, "feature", "obsCount")

    ##             levelName   feature obsCount
    ## 1  mushroom               color        5
    ## 2   ¦--brown          edibility        2
    ## 3   ¦   °--edible                      2
    ## 4   ¦--green          edibility        1
    ## 5   ¦   °--edible                      1
    ## 6   °--red                 size        2
    ## 7       ¦--large      edibility        1
    ## 8       ¦   °--edible                  1
    ## 9       °--small      edibility        1
    ## 10          °--toxic                   1

## Prediction

### The prediction method

We need a predict function, which will route data through our tree and make a prediction based on the leave where it ends up:

    Predict <- function(tree, features) {
      if (tree$children[[1]]$isLeaf) return (tree$children[[1]]$name)
      child <- tree$children[[features[[tree$feature]]]]
      return ( Predict(child, features))
    }

### Using the prediction method

And now we use it to predict:

    Predict(tree, c(color = 'red',
                    size = 'large',
                    points = 'yes')
            )

    ## [1] "edible"

Oops! Looks like trusting classification blindly might get you killed.

# Jenny Lind (decision tree, plotting)

This demo calculates and plots a simple decision tree. It demonstrates the following:

- how to read a yaml file into a data.tree structure
- how to calculate a decision tree
- how to plot a data.tree with the data.tree plotting facility

## Load YAML file

YAML is similar to JSON, but targeted towards humans (as opposed to computers). It’s consise and easy to read. YAML can be a neat format to store your data.tree structures, as you can use it across different software and systems, you can edit it with any text editor, and you can even send it as an email.

This is how our YAML file looks:

    fileName <- system.file("extdata", "jennylind.yaml", package="data.tree")
    cat(readChar(fileName, file.info(fileName)$size))

    ## name: Jenny Lind
    ## type: decision
    ## Sign with Movie Company:
    ##   type: chance
    ##   Small Box Office:
    ##     type: terminal
    ##     p: 0.3
    ##     payoff: 200000
    ##   Medium Box Office:
    ##     type: terminal
    ##     p: 0.6
    ##     payoff: 1000000
    ##   Large Box Office:
    ##     type: terminal
    ##     p: 0.1
    ##     payoff: 3000000
    ## Sign with TV Network:
    ##   type: chance
    ##   Small Box Office:
    ##     type: terminal
    ##     p: 0.3
    ##     payoff: 900000
    ##   Medium Box Office:
    ##     type: terminal
    ##     p: 0.6
    ##     payoff: 900000
    ##   Large Box Office:
    ##     type: terminal
    ##     p: 0.1
    ##     payoff: 900000

Let’s convert the YAML into a data.tree structure. First, we load it with the yaml package into a list of lists. Then we use `as.Node` to convert the list into a data.tree structure:

    library(data.tree)
    library(yaml)
    lol <- yaml.load_file(fileName)
    jl <- as.Node(lol)
    print(jl, "type", "payoff", "p")

    ##                     levelName     type  payoff   p
    ## 1 Jenny Lind                  decision      NA  NA
    ## 2  ¦--Sign with Movie Company   chance      NA  NA
    ## 3  ¦   ¦--Small Box Office    terminal  200000 0.3
    ## 4  ¦   ¦--Medium Box Office   terminal 1000000 0.6
    ## 5  ¦   °--Large Box Office    terminal 3000000 0.1
    ## 6  °--Sign with TV Network      chance      NA  NA
    ## 7      ¦--Small Box Office    terminal  900000 0.3
    ## 8      ¦--Medium Box Office   terminal  900000 0.6
    ## 9      °--Large Box Office    terminal  900000 0.1

## Calculate

Next, we define our payoff function, and apply it to the tree. Note that we use post-order traversal, meaning that we calculate the tree from leaf to root:

    payoff <- function(node) {
      if (node$type == 'chance') node$payoff <- sum(sapply(node$children, function(child) child$payoff * child$p))
      else if (node$type == 'decision') node$payoff <- max(sapply(node$children, function(child) child$payoff))
    }

    jl$Do(payoff, traversal = "post-order", filterFun = isNotLeaf)

The decision function is the next step. Note that we filter on decision nodes:

    decision <- function(x) {
      po <- sapply(x$children, function(child) child$payoff)
      x$decision <- names(po[po == x$payoff])
    }

    jl$Do(decision, filterFun = function(x) x$type == 'decision')

## Plot

### Plot with the data.tree plotting facility

The data tree plotting facility uses GraphViz / DiagrammeR. You can provide a function as a style:

    GetNodeLabel <- function(node) switch(node$type,
                                          terminal = paste0( '$ ', format(node$payoff, scientific = FALSE, big.mark = ",")),
                                          paste0('ER\n', '$ ', format(node$payoff, scientific = FALSE, big.mark = ",")))

    GetEdgeLabel <- function(node) {
      if (!node$isRoot && node$parent$type == 'chance') {
        label = paste0(node$name, " (", node$p, ")")
      } else {
        label = node$name
      }
      return (label)
    }

    GetNodeShape <- function(node) switch(node$type, decision = "box", chance = "circle", terminal = "none")

    SetEdgeStyle(jl, fontname = 'helvetica', label = GetEdgeLabel)
    SetNodeStyle(jl, fontname = 'helvetica', label = GetNodeLabel, shape = GetNodeShape)

Note that the `fontname` is inherited as is by all children, whereas e.g. the `label` argument is a function, it’s called on each inheriting child node.

Another alternative is to set the style per node:

    jl$Do(function(x) SetEdgeStyle(x, color = "red", inherit = FALSE),
          filterFun = function(x) !x$isRoot && x$parent$type == "decision" && x$parent$decision == x$name)

Finally, we direct our plot from left-to-right, and use the plot function to display:

    SetGraphStyle(jl, rankdir = "LR")
    plot(jl)

# Bubble Chart (visualization)

In this example, we will replicate Mike Bostock’s bubble example. See here for details: https://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/4063269.
We use Joe Cheng’s bubbles package. All of this is inspired by Timelyportfolio, the king of htmlwidgets.

You’ll learn how to convert a complex JSON into a data.frame, and how to use this to plot hierarchic visualizations.

## Load JSON file

The data represents the Flare class hierarchy, which is a code library for creating visualizations. The JSON is long, deeply nested, and complicated.

    fileName <- system.file("extdata", "flare.json", package="data.tree")
    flareJSON <- readChar(fileName, file.info(fileName)$size)
    cat(substr(flareJSON, 1, 300))

    ## {
    ##  "name": "flare",
    ##  "children": [
    ##   {
    ##    "name": "analytics",
    ##    "children": [
    ##     {
    ##      "name": "cluster",
    ##      "children": [
    ##       {"name": "AgglomerativeCluster", "size": 3938},
    ##       {"name": "CommunityStructure", "size": 3812},
    ##       {"name": "HierarchicalCluster", "size": 6714},

So, let’s convert it into a data.tree structure:

    library(jsonlite)
    flareLoL <- fromJSON(file(fileName),
                         simplifyDataFrame = FALSE
                         )

    flareTree <- as.Node(flareLoL, mode = "explicit", check = "no-warn")
    flareTree$attributesAll

    ## [1] "size"

    print(flareTree, "size", limit = 30)

    ##                            levelName  size
    ## 1  flare                                NA
    ## 2   ¦--analytics                        NA
    ## 3   ¦   ¦--cluster                      NA
    ## 4   ¦   ¦   ¦--AgglomerativeCluster   3938
    ## 5   ¦   ¦   ¦--CommunityStructure     3812
    ## 6   ¦   ¦   ¦--HierarchicalCluster    6714
    ## 7   ¦   ¦   °--MergeEdge               743
    ## 8   ¦   ¦--graph                        NA
    ## 9   ¦   ¦   ¦--BetweennessCentrality  3534
    ## 10  ¦   ¦   ¦--LinkDistance           5731
    ## 11  ¦   ¦   ¦--MaxFlowMinCut          7840
    ## 12  ¦   ¦   ¦--ShortestPaths          5914
    ## 13  ¦   ¦   °--SpanningTree           3416
    ## 14  ¦   °--optimization                 NA
    ## 15  ¦       °--AspectRatioBanker      7074
    ## 16  ¦--animate                          NA
    ## 17  ¦   ¦--Easing                    17010
    ## 18  ¦   ¦--FunctionSequence           5842
    ## 19  ¦   ¦--interpolate                  NA
    ## 20  ¦   ¦   ¦--ArrayInterpolator      1983
    ## 21  ¦   ¦   ¦--ColorInterpolator      2047
    ## 22  ¦   ¦   ¦--DateInterpolator       1375
    ## 23  ¦   ¦   ¦--Interpolator           8746
    ## 24  ¦   ¦   ¦--MatrixInterpolator     2202
    ## 25  ¦   ¦   ¦--NumberInterpolator     1382
    ## 26  ¦   ¦   ¦--ObjectInterpolator     1629
    ## 27  ¦   ¦   ¦--PointInterpolator      1675
    ## 28  ¦   ¦   °--RectangleInterpolator  2042
    ## 29  ¦   ¦--ISchedulable               1041
    ## 30  ¦   °--... 8 nodes w/ 0 sub         NA
    ## 31  °--... 8 nodes w/ 215 sub           NA

Finally, we can convert it into a data.frame. The `ToDataFrameTable` only converts leafs, but inherits attributes from ancestors:

    flare_df <- ToDataFrameTable(flareTree,
                                 className = function(x) x$parent$name,
                                 packageName = "name",
                                 "size")
    head(flare_df)

    ##   className           packageName size
    ## 1   cluster  AgglomerativeCluster 3938
    ## 2   cluster    CommunityStructure 3812
    ## 3   cluster   HierarchicalCluster 6714
    ## 4   cluster             MergeEdge  743
    ## 5     graph BetweennessCentrality 3534
    ## 6     graph          LinkDistance 5731

This does not look spectacular. But take a look at this stack overflow question to see how people struggle to do this type of operation.

Here, it was particularly simple, because the underlying JSON structure is regular. If it were not (e.g. some nodes contain different attributes than others), the conversion from JSON to data.tree would still work. And then, as a second step, we could modify the data.tree structure before converting it into a data.frame. For example, we could use `Prune` and `Remove` to remove unwanted nodes, use `Set` to remove or add default values, etc.

## Plot

What follows has nothing to do with data.tree anymore. We simply provide the bubble chart printing for your enjoyment. In order to run it yourself, you need to install the bubbles package from github:

    devtools::install_github("jcheng5/bubbles@6724e43f5e")
    library(scales)
    library(bubbles)
    library(RColorBrewer)
    bubbles(
      flare_df$size,
      substr(flare_df$packageName, 1, 2),
      tooltip = flare_df$packageName,
      color = col_factor(
        brewer.pal(9,"Set1"),
        factor(flare_df$className)
      )(flare_df$className),
      height = 800,
      width = 800
    )

# File Explorer (system utilities)

In this example, we print the files that exist in the folder structure of the file system. As a special goodie, we’ll show code that lets you build your own R File Explorer, an interactive tree / list widget that lets you expand folders and browse through your file system.

## Print

First, let’s read the files in a directory tree into R. In this example, the root path “..” is the parent of the `vignettes` folder, i.e. the data.tree package folder itself:

    path <- ".."
    files <- list.files(path = path,
                        recursive = TRUE,
                        include.dirs = FALSE)

    df <- data.frame(
          filename = sapply(files,
                            function(fl) paste0("data.tree","/",fl)
          ),
          file.info(paste(path, files, sep = "/")),
          stringsAsFactors = FALSE
        )

    print(head(df)[c(1,2,3,4)], row.names = FALSE)

    ##                         filename  size isdir mode
    ##        data.tree/CRAN-SUBMISSION    94 FALSE  666
    ##            data.tree/DESCRIPTION  2149 FALSE  666
    ##              data.tree/NAMESPACE  1490 FALSE  666
    ##                   data.tree/NEWS 12889 FALSE  666
    ##  data.tree/R/data.tree-package.R  5098 FALSE  666
    ##           data.tree/R/data_doc.R   988 FALSE  666

We now convert this into a data.tree:

    fileStructure <- as.Node(df, pathName = "filename")
    fileStructure$leafCount / (fileStructure$totalCount - fileStructure$leafCount)

    ## [1] 5.504505

    print(fileStructure, "mode", "size", limit = 25)

    ##                               levelName mode  size
    ## 1  data.tree                              NA    NA
    ## 2   ¦--CRAN-SUBMISSION                   438    94
    ## 3   ¦--DESCRIPTION                       438  2149
    ## 4   ¦--NAMESPACE                         438  1490
    ## 5   ¦--NEWS                              438 12889
    ## 6   ¦--R                                  NA    NA
    ## 7   ¦   ¦--data.tree-package.R           438  5098
    ## 8   ¦   ¦--data_doc.R                    438   988
    ## 9   ¦   ¦--node.R                        438 40141
    ## 10  ¦   ¦--node_actives.R                438  2238
    ## 11  ¦   ¦--node_conversion.R             438  1872
    ## 12  ¦   ¦--node_conversion_ape.R         438  4261
    ## 13  ¦   ¦--node_conversion_dataframe.R   438 16850
    ## 14  ¦   ¦--node_conversion_dendrogram.R  438  3880
    ## 15  ¦   ¦--node_conversion_igraph.R      438  1591
    ## 16  ¦   ¦--node_conversion_list.R        438 10750
    ## 17  ¦   ¦--node_conversion_party.R       438  5451
    ## 18  ¦   ¦--node_conversion_rpart.R       438  1850
    ## 19  ¦   ¦--node_methods.R                438 16896
    ## 20  ¦   ¦--node_methods_sideeffect.R     438  4575
    ## 21  ¦   ¦--node_methods_traversal.R      438 11928
    ## 22  ¦   ¦--node_plot.R                   438 10870
    ## 23  ¦   ¦--register-s3.R                 438  3023
    ## 24  ¦   ¦--release.R                     438   377
    ## 25  ¦   °--... 2 nodes w/ 0 sub           NA    NA
    ## 26  °--... 12 nodes w/ 4296 sub           NA    NA

## Listviewer html widget

Finally, we can display the files by timelyportfolio’s listviewer. As it’s not on CRAN, we only display a screenshot of the widget in in this vignette. This is not half as fun as the interactive widget, of course. So please try it out for yourself to see it in action.

    #This requires listviewer, which is available only on github
    devtools::install_github("timelyportfolio/listviewer")

    library(listviewer)

    l <- ToListSimple(fileStructure)
    jsonedit(l)

(Run the code yourself to see the widget in action)

# Gene Defect (genetics, probabilities, multi-generation models)

This is a simplistic example from the area of genetics. Similar models are found in many attributes, namely wherever you have multi-generation models and probabilities.

The code generates 100 simulations of a 3 generation population. Individuals can inherit or develop a certain feature (e.g. colour blindness). The probability to develop the feature is based on sex. We then plot the probability distribution of the feature in the last generation.

You’ll learn how to build a data.tree structure according to probabilistic rules, and how to use the structure to infer a probability distribution.

## Algorithm

First, we generate a family tree of a population exhibiting a certain feature (e.g. colour blindness).

    #' @param children the number of children each population member has
    #' @param probSex the probability of the sex of a descendant
    #' @param probInherit the probability the feature is inherited, depending on the sex of the descendant
    #' @param probDevelop the probability the feature is developed (e.g. a gene defect), depending on the sex
    #' of the descendant
    #' @param generations the number of generations our simulated population should have
    #' @param parent for recursion
    GenerateChildrenTree <- function(children = 2,
                                     probSex = c(male = 0.52, female = 0.48),
                                     probInherit = c(male = 0.8, female = 0.5),
                                     probDevelop = c(male = 0.05, female = 0.01),
                                     generations = 3,
                                     parent = NULL) {

      if (is.null(parent)) {
        parent <- Node$new("1")
        parent$sex <- 1
        parent$feature <- TRUE
        parent$develop <- FALSE
      }

      #sex of descendants
      #1 = male
      #2 = female
      sex <- sample.int(n = 2, size = children, replace = TRUE, prob = probSex)
      for (i in 1:children) child <- parent$AddChild(i)
      Set(parent$children, sex = sex)

      #inherit
      if (parent$feature == TRUE) {
        for (i in 1:2) {
          subPop <- Traverse(parent, filterFun = function(x) x$sex == i)
          inherit <- sample.int(n = 2,
                                size = length(subPop),
                                replace = TRUE,
                                prob = c(1 - probInherit[i], probInherit[i]))

          Set(subPop, feature = as.logical(inherit - 1))
        }
      } else {
        Set(parent$children, feature = FALSE)
      }

      #develop
      Set(parent$children, develop = FALSE)
      for (i in 1:2) {
        subPop <- Traverse(parent, filterFun = function(x) x$sex == i && !x$feature)
        develop <- sample.int(n = 2,
                              size = length(subPop),
                              replace = TRUE,
                              prob = c(1 - probDevelop[i], probDevelop[i]))
        Set(subPop, feature = as.logical((develop - 1)), develop = as.logical((develop - 1)))
      }

      #recursion to next generation
      if (generations > 0) for (i in 1:children) GenerateChildrenTree(children,
                                                                      probSex,
                                                                      probInherit,
                                                                      probDevelop,
                                                                      generations - 1,
                                                                      parent$children[[i]])

      return (parent)
    }

## Analysis

Just for demonstration purpose, this is what a tree looks like:

    tree <- GenerateChildrenTree()
    print(tree, "sex", "feature", "develop", limit = 20)

    ##                               levelName sex feature develop
    ## 1  1                                      1    TRUE   FALSE
    ## 2   ¦--1                                  2   FALSE   FALSE
    ## 3   ¦   ¦--1                              1   FALSE   FALSE
    ## 4   ¦   ¦   ¦--1                          1   FALSE   FALSE
    ## 5   ¦   ¦   ¦   ¦--1                      1   FALSE   FALSE
    ## 6   ¦   ¦   ¦   °--2                      1   FALSE   FALSE
    ## 7   ¦   ¦   °--2                          1   FALSE   FALSE
    ## 8   ¦   ¦       ¦--1                      1    TRUE    TRUE
    ## 9   ¦   ¦       °--2                      1   FALSE   FALSE
    ## 10  ¦   °--2                              1   FALSE   FALSE
    ## 11  ¦       ¦--1                          2   FALSE   FALSE
    ## 12  ¦       ¦   ¦--1                      1   FALSE   FALSE
    ## 13  ¦       ¦   °--2                      2   FALSE   FALSE
    ## 14  ¦       °--2                          1   FALSE   FALSE
    ## 15  ¦           ¦--1                      2   FALSE   FALSE
    ## 16  ¦           °--2                      2   FALSE   FALSE
    ## 17  °--2                                  2   FALSE   FALSE
    ## 18      ¦--1                              1   FALSE   FALSE
    ## 19      ¦   ¦--1                          1   FALSE   FALSE
    ## 20      ¦   ¦   °--... 2 nodes w/ 0 sub  NA      NA      NA
    ## 21      ¦   °--... 1 nodes w/ 4 sub      NA      NA      NA
    ## 22      °--... 1 nodes w/ 11 sub         NA      NA      NA

How big is our population after three generations?

    tree$totalCount

    ## [1] 31

For a given tree, how many have the feature?

    length(Traverse(tree, filterFun = function(x) x$feature))

    ## [1] 2

How many males have developed the feature without inheritance?

    length(Traverse(tree, filterFun = function(x) x$sex == 1 && x$develop))

    ## [1] 1

What is the occurrence of the feature in the last generation?

    FreqLastGen <- function(tree) {
      l <- tree$leaves
      sum(sapply(l, function(x) x$feature))/length(l)
    }

    FreqLastGen(tree)

    ## [1] 0.0625

## Simulation

Generate 100 sample trees and get the frequency of the feature in the last generation

    system.time(x <- sapply(1:100, function(x) FreqLastGen(GenerateChildrenTree())))

    ##        User      System verstrichen
    ##        2.69        0.05        2.91

Plot a histogram of the frequency of the defect in the last generation:

    hist(x, probability = TRUE, main = "Frequency of feature in last generation")

For larger populations, you might consider parallelisation, of course. See below for some hints.

## Parallelisation

It is straight forward to parallelise the simulation. If, as in this example, you do not need to pass around a data.tree structure from one process (fork) to another, it is also rather efficient.

    library(foreach)
    library(doParallel)
    registerDoParallel(makeCluster(3))
    #On Linux, there are other alternatives, e.g.: library(doMC);  registerDoMC(3)

    system.time(x <- foreach (i = 1:100, .packages = "data.tree") %dopar% FreqLastGen(GenerateChildrenTree()))
    stopImplicitCluster()

    ##    user  system elapsed
    ##    0.07    0.02    1.40

For the more complicated case where you want to parallelise operations on a single tree, see below.

# Tic-Tac-Toe (game complexity)

In this example, we do a brute force solution of Tic-Tac-Toe, the well-known 3*3 game.

You’ll learn how data.tree can be used to build a tree of game history, and how the resulting data.tree structure can be used to analyze the game.

In addition, this example shows you how parallelisation can speed up data.tree.

We want to set up the problem in a way such that each `Node` is a move of a player, and each path describes the entire history of a game.

We number the attributes from 1 to 9. Additionally, for easy readability, we label the Nodes in an Excel-like manner, such that field 9, say, is ‘c3’:

    attributes <- expand.grid(letters[1:3], 1:3)
    attributes

    ##   Var1 Var2
    ## 1    a    1
    ## 2    b    1
    ## 3    c    1
    ## 4    a    2
    ## 5    b    2
    ## 6    c    2
    ## 7    a    3
    ## 8    b    3
    ## 9    c    3

To speed up things a bit, we consider rotation, so that, say, the first move in a3 and a1 are considered equal, because they could be achieved with a 90 degree rotation of the board. This leaves us with only a3, b3, and b2 for the first move of player 1:

    ttt <- Node$new("ttt")

    #consider rotation, so first move is explicit
    ttt$AddChild("a3")
    ttt$a3$f <- 7
    ttt$AddChild("b3")
    ttt$b3$f <- 8
    ttt$AddChild("b2")
    ttt$b2$f <- 5

    ttt$Set(player = 1, filterFun = isLeaf)

## Game play

Now we recurse through the tree, and add possible moves to the leaves, growing it eventually to hold all possible games. To do this, we define a method which, based on a `Node's` path, adds possible moves as children.

    AddPossibleMoves <- function(node) {
      t <- Traverse(node, traversal = "ancestor", filterFun = isNotRoot)

      available <- rownames(attributes)[!rownames(attributes) %in% Get(t, "f")]
      for (f in available) {
        child <- node$AddChild(paste0(attributes[f, 1], attributes[f, 2]))
        child$f <- as.numeric(f)
        child$player <- ifelse(node$player == 1, 2, 1)
        hasWon <- HasWon(child)
        if (!hasWon && child$level <= 10) AddPossibleMoves(child)
        if (hasWon) {
          child$result <- child$player
          print(paste("Player ", child$player, "wins!"))
        } else if(child$level == 10) {
          child$result <- 0
          print("Tie!")
        }

      }
      return (node)
    }

Note that we store additional info along the way. For example, in the line `child$player <- ifelse(node$player == 1, 2, 1)`, the player is deferred from the parent `Node`, and set as an attribute in the `Node`.

## Exit Criteria

Our algorithm stops whenever either player has won, or when all 9 attributes are taken. Whether a player has won is determined by this function:

    HasWon <- function(node) {
      t <- Traverse(node, traversal = "ancestor", filterFun = function(x) !x$isRoot && x$player == node$player)
      mine <- Get(t, "f")
      mineV <- rep(0, 9)
      mineV[mine] <- 1
      mineM <- matrix(mineV, 3, 3, byrow = TRUE)
      result <- any(rowSums(mineM) == 3) ||
        any(colSums(mineM) == 3) ||
        sum(diag(mineM)) == 3 ||
        sum(diag(t(mineM))) == 3
      return (result)
    }

## Tree creation

The following code plays all possible games. Depending on your computer, this might take a few minutes:

    system.time(for (child in ttt$children) AddPossibleMoves(child))

    ##    user  system elapsed
    ## 345.645   3.245 346.445

## Analysis

What is the total number of games?

    ttt$leafCount

    ## [1] 89796

How many nodes (moves) does our tree have?

    ttt$totalCount

    ## [1] 203716

What is the average length of a game?

    mean(ttt$Get(function(x) x$level - 1, filterFun = isLeaf))

    ## [1] 8.400775

What is the average branching factor?

    ttt$averageBranchingFactor

    ## [1] 1.788229

How many games were won by each player?

    winnerOne <- Traverse(ttt, filterFun = function(x) x$isLeaf && x$result == 1)
    winnerTwo <- Traverse(ttt, filterFun = function(x) x$isLeaf && x$result == 2)
    ties <- Traverse(ttt, filterFun = function(x) x$isLeaf && x$result == 0)

    c(winnerOne = length(winnerOne), winnerTwo = length(winnerTwo), ties = length(ties))

    ## winnerOne winnerTwo      ties
    ##     39588     21408     28800

We can, for example, look at any Node, using the `PrintBoard` function. This function prints the game history:

    PrintBoard <- function(node) {
      mineV <- rep(0, 9)

      t <- Traverse(node, traversal = "ancestor", filterFun = function(x) !x$isRoot && x$player == 1)
      field <- Get(t, "f")
      value <- Get(t, function(x) paste0("X", x$level - 1))
      mineV[field] <- value

      t <- Traverse(node, traversal = "ancestor", filterFun = function(x) !x$isRoot && x$player == 2)
      field <- Get(t, "f")
      value <- Get(t, function(x) paste0("O", x$level - 1))
      mineV[field] <- value

      mineM <- matrix(mineV, 3, 3, byrow = TRUE)
      rownames(mineM) <- letters[1:3]
      colnames(mineM) <- as.character(1:3)
      mineM
    }

The first number denotes the move (1 to 9). The second number is the player:

    PrintBoard(ties[[1]])

    ##   1    2    3
    ## a "O2" "X3" "O4"
    ## b "X5" "O6" "X7"
    ## c "X1" "O8" "X9"

Exercise: Do the same for Chess!

## Parallelisation

Here, the parallelisation is more challenging as with the Gene Defect example above. The reason is that we have only one tree, albeit a big one. So we need a strategy to do what we call intra-tree parallelisation.

In a perfect world, data.tree and intra-tree parallelisation would tell a love story: Many operations are recursive, and can be called equally well on a subtree or on an entire tree. Therefore, it is very natural to delegate the calculation of multiple sub-trees to different processes.

For example, tic-tac-toe seems almost trivial to parallelise: Remember that, on level 2, we created manually 3 `Nodes`. The creation of the sub-trees on these `Nodes` will be completely independent on the other sub-trees. Then, each sub-tree can be created in its own process.

So, in theory, we could use any parallelisation mechanism available in R. Unfortunately, you need to take into account a few things. As a matter of fact, to pass the sub-trees from a fork process back to the main process, R needs to serialize the `Nodes` of the sub-tree, and this results in huge objects. As a result, collecting the sub-trees would take ages.

So, instead, we can

1. create the sub-trees, each in its own process
2. run the analysis in the child process
3. return the result of the analysis to the main process
4. aggregate the results

    AnalyseTicTacToe <- function(subtree) {
      # 1. create sub-tree
      AddPossibleMoves(subtree)
      # 2. run the analysis
      winnerOne <- Traverse(subtree, filterFun = function(x) x$isLeaf && x$result == 1)
      winnerTwo <- Traverse(subtree, filterFun = function(x) x$isLeaf && x$result == 2)
      ties <- Traverse(subtree, filterFun = function(x) x$isLeaf && x$result == 0)

      res <- c(winnerOne = length(winnerOne),
               winnerTwo = length(winnerTwo),
               ties = length(ties))
      # 3. return the result
      return(res)
    }

    library(foreach)
    library(doParallel)
    registerDoParallel(makeCluster(3))
    #On Linux, there are other alternatives, e.g.: library(doMC);  registerDoMC(3)
    system.time(
      x <- foreach (child = ttt$children,
                    .packages = "data.tree") %dopar% AnalyseTicTacToe(child)
    )

    ##    user  system elapsed
    ##    0.05    0.04  116.86

    stopImplicitCluster()
    # 4. aggregate results
    rowSums(sapply(x, c))

    ## winnerOne winnerTwo      ties
    ##     39588     21408     28800