Useful functions

Copy, convert

To make an independent copy of a tree, simply call copy.

julia> tree = parse_newick_string("((A:1,B:1)AB:2,C:3)R;");
julia> tree_copy = copy(tree);
julia> label!(tree_copy, "A", "Alfred") # relabel node A
julia> tree_copy
                                                 ________________________ Alfred
  ______________________________________________|
_|                                              |________________________ B
 |
 |_______________________________________________________________________ C
julia> tree
                                                     _________________________ A
  __________________________________________________|
_|                                                  |_________________________ B
 |
 |____________________________________________________________________________ C

The convert function allows one to change the data type attached to nodes:

julia> typeof(tree)Tree{TreeTools.EmptyData}
julia> data(tree["A"])TreeTools.EmptyData()
julia> tree_with_data = convert(Tree{MiscData}, tree);
julia> typeof(tree_with_data)Tree{MiscData}
julia> data(tree_with_data["A"])["Hello"] = " world!"" world!"

MRCA, divergence time

The most recent common ancestor between two nodes or more is found using the function lca:

julia> lca(tree["A"], tree["B"]) # simplest formNode AB:
Ancestor: R, branch length = 2.0
2 children: ["A", "B"]
julia> lca(tree, "A", "B") # lca(tree, labels...)Node AB:
Ancestor: R, branch length = 2.0
2 children: ["A", "B"]
julia> lca(tree, "A", "B", "C") # takes a variable number of labels as inputNode R (root)
Ancestor : `nothing` (root)
2 children: ["AB", "C"]
julia> lca(tree, "A", "AB") # This is not restricted to leavesNode AB:
Ancestor: R, branch length = 2.0
2 children: ["A", "B"]

To compute the distance or divergence time between two tree nodes, use distance. The topological keyword allows computing the number of branches separating two nodes.

julia> distance(tree, "A", "C")6.0
julia> distance(tree["A"], tree["C"]; topological=true)3.0

The function is_ancestor tells you if one node is found among the ancestors of another. This uses equality between TreeNode, which simply compares labels, see Basic concepts

julia> is_ancestor(tree, "A", "C")false
julia> is_ancestor(tree, "R", "A")true

Distance between trees

The distance function also lets you compute the distance between two trees. For now, only the Robinson-Foulds distance is implemented, but more could come.

julia> t1 = parse_newick_string("((A,B,D),C);")
 not all branch lengths known, assuming identical branch lengths

                                        ______________________________________ A
                                       |
  _____________________________________|______________________________________ B
 |                                     |
_|                                     |______________________________________ D
 |
 |______________________________________ C
julia> t2 = parse_newick_string("((A,(B,D)),C);")
 not all branch lengths known, assuming identical branch lengths

                           __________________________ A
  ________________________|
 |                        |                          _________________________ B
_|                        |_________________________|
 |                                                  |_________________________ D
 |
 |_________________________ C
julia> distance(t1, t2)1
julia> distance(t1, t2; scale=true)ERROR: MethodError: no method matching distance(::Tree{TreeTools.EmptyData}, ::Tree{TreeTools.EmptyData}; scale=true)
Closest candidates are:
  distance(::Tree, ::Tree; type, normalize) at ~/work/TreeTools.jl/TreeTools.jl/src/methods.jl:918 got unsupported keyword argument "scale"
  distance(::Tree, !Matched::AbstractString, !Matched::AbstractString; topological) at ~/work/TreeTools.jl/TreeTools.jl/src/methods.jl:461 got unsupported keyword argument "scale"