The syntax for declaring an enumeration is:

enum type name { value, value...};

For example:

enum string state { 
   "Alabama",
   "Alaska", 
   ... 
   “Wyoming" 
}; 

The word “string” indicates that the enumeration maps integers to strings; they can also be mapped to other types.

Once you declare an enumeration, you can declare a column to be of that enumeration using the following syntax:

enum enumname columnname;

For example, the following declares st to be a variable of state enumeration:

enum state st;

The input file corresponding to this column must contain values from 0-49 (or “?” representing null); however, the output shows the state name.

You can also use Enumerations to declare enumerated arrays (see “Enumerated Arrays” on page 49).

In MineSet, you can use one-dimensional or two-dimensional arrays of fixed or variable size.

In a fixed-sized array, all entries of the given type have the same number of values. For example, the budgets of the 50 states can be represented by a separate float column for each state, or by a single array with 50 floats.

A special form of a fixed array is an “enumerated array.” Like the normal fixed array, there are a fixed number of values in the array; however, the values are associated with an enumeration. For each value in the enumeration, there is a single entry in the array. For example, if an enumeration represents the 50 states, an enumerated array based on this enumeration has 50 values.

A variant of the enumerated array is the “null enumerated array,” which has an additional entry at the beginning for null (represented as a “?”). For example, with the enumeration of the 50 states, the null enumerated array has 51 values, one for NULL, and the remaining 50 for the 50 states. The null array element could be used for entries where the state is unknown.

The tree visualizer also supports variable length arrays (see Chapter 6, “Creating Data and Configuration Files for the Tree Visualizer,” for details).

As with the columns, arrays are represented as value separated by tabs or other separators. For a fixed-sized array, you can use the same separator for columns and for individual array elements (in which case, array elements are not visually distinguished from separate columns). You can also define a different separator. In the sales example, for instance, you can treat the location as a four-element array, rather than as four columns. It then could be represented like this:

Eastern:Maryland:Baltimore:1816 appliances 72 115 138

In this example, the array is separated by colons, and the columns are separated by tabs. (For clarity, the rest of this document uses this format.)

For a variable-length array, you must use different separators for the array and for the columns; otherwise, it is impossible to determine where the variable-length array ends and the other columns begin.

Any field or array element in the data file can also have the value “?” (question mark), indicating an unknown or null value (see the discussion of nulls in Chapter 12, “Nulls in MineSet.”)

type name [ number ] ;

float revenue [50];

type name [ number ] separator `char';

float revenue [50] separator `:';

type name [ enum keyname ];
type name [enum keyname ] separator `char';

float revenue [enum state]; 

type name [ null enum keyname ]; 
type name [ null enum keyname ] separator `char'; 

float revenue [null enum state];

The configuration file consists of a series of sections, each of which has this syntax:

sectionKeyword 
{
    statements...
}

sectionKeyword names the section. A semicolon (;) can follow the closing brace (}) but is not required. The order of the sections is significant, since sections can refer to variables defined in previous sections. The sections found in a treeviz configuration file are “Input Section,” “Expressions Section,” “Hierarchy Section,” and “View Section.”

As each section is encountered, a special configuration file (referred to as an “options file”) is also read in. Options files have names in the following form:

sectionName.treeviz.options

Options files normally contain options statements. These files are read in the following order:

Files with the same name can appear in more than one of the above-named directories; in this case, the order given is the one in which the directories are read. If the same option is found in multiple files, the last option read is used. Note that the appropriate section in the configuration file is read after all the options files have been read in; thus, options in the configuration file override those in the options files.

A statement has the following syntax:

statementKeyword info;

statementKeyword defines the statement, and info varies according to the keyword. A statement can be another section (using the brace format defined under “Sections”).

options key info, key info...; 

options home angle 30, shrinkage 10.0; 
options home angle 30; 
options shrinkage 10.0;

include "filename" 

sinclude "filename" 

The input section of a data file has several options. All options statements begin with the word options and have one or more comma-separated options.