[Tutor] mapping problem

[Danny Yoo]

> A snippet of the problem is here. The terms in file as
> tab delim manner.

[data cut]

> Now my question is to enrich members that have identical lineage with
> different leaf. 'i.e': a b c d - van suv.


Hi Srinivas,

You're starting to use the vocabulary of tree data structures here.  Let's
clarify what you mean by:

> I have two terms in this path and I am not happy with two. I wish to
> have more.

I think you mean "I have two descendent leaves at this point ...", in
which case your next statement:


> Then: a b c - car, van, truck, SUV and 18-wheeler (automobiles that
> travel on road). I am happy with this grouping and I enriched more items
> if I walk on lienage : (a-b-c)

sounds like traversing up from your current node up to the parent node. In
your example, this expands the descendent leaves to include those other
elements.



> Is there a way to automate this problem.

I would strongly recommend not thinking about this as a text file problem,
but as a data structure problem.  Trying to do this by messing with lines
and tabs seems to me like asking to turn a simple problem into a difficult
one.  The fact that the data that you have is in a text file should be
treated as an accident more than anything: nothing binds you to try to
solve your problem by slogging through with the original data
representation.

The problem becomes much clearer if you're dealing with trees:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_data_structure

in which case you can use the vocabulary of tree traversal to make the
problem very simple.  I might be misundestanding what you're sying but it
sounds like you're just asking for parent node traversal, which is a
fundamental operation on trees.