R – Flex Tree Properties, Null Reference

apache-flextreexml

I am pulling down a large XML file and I have no control over it's structure.

I used a custom function to use the tag name to view the tree structure as a flex tree, but then it breaks. I am guessing it has something to do with my other function, one that calls attribute values from the selected node.

See code.


<mx:Tree x="254" y="21" width="498" height="579" id="xmllisttree"       labelFunction="namer" dataProvider="{treeData}" showRoot="false"  change="treeChanged(event)" />

//and the Cdata
import mx.rpc.events.ResultEvent; 
[Bindable] private var fullXML:XMLList;  
private function contentHandler(evt:ResultEvent):void{  
    fullXML = evt.result.page;  
}  

[Bindable]
public var selectedNode:Object;

public function treeChanged(event:Event):void {
selectedNode=Tree(event.target).selectedItem;
}

 public function namer(item:Object):String {
        var node:XML = XML(item);
        var nodeName:QName = node.name();
        var stringtest:String ="bunny";
            return nodeName.localName;
        }

The error is TypeError: Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference.

Where is the null reference?

Best Answer

OK. It sounds like your XML looks something like this:

<root>
  <test>
    <child>leaf 1</child>
  </test>
  <test2>
    <child2>leaf 2</child2>
  </test2>
</root>

The significant part of this is that there is simple content within the child and child2 tags. Expanding the tree to show 'leaf 1' or 'leaf 2' causes the error you are receiving, because node.name() will return null. This makes sense, because 'leaf 1' and 'leaf 2' are text nodes and don't have node names.

To correct the problem, you can update the namer function to something along these lines:

public function namer(item:Object):String {
    var node:XML = XML(item);
    var nodeName:QName = node.name();
    if (nodeName) {
        return nodeName.localName;
    } else {
        return String(node);
    }
}

This will use 'leaf 1' and 'leaf 2' as the label for the corresponding nodes in the tree.

Related Solutions

Sql – the most efficient/elegant way to parse a flat table into a tree

Now that MySQL 8.0 supports recursive queries, we can say that all popular SQL databases support recursive queries in standard syntax.

WITH RECURSIVE MyTree AS (
    SELECT * FROM MyTable WHERE ParentId IS NULL
    UNION ALL
    SELECT m.* FROM MyTABLE AS m JOIN MyTree AS t ON m.ParentId = t.Id
)
SELECT * FROM MyTree;

I tested recursive queries in MySQL 8.0 in my presentation Recursive Query Throwdown in 2017.

Below is my original answer from 2008:

There are several ways to store tree-structured data in a relational database. What you show in your example uses two methods:

Adjacency List (the "parent" column) and
Path Enumeration (the dotted-numbers in your name column).

Another solution is called Nested Sets, and it can be stored in the same table too. Read "Trees and Hierarchies in SQL for Smarties" by Joe Celko for a lot more information on these designs.

I usually prefer a design called Closure Table (aka "Adjacency Relation") for storing tree-structured data. It requires another table, but then querying trees is pretty easy.

I cover Closure Table in my presentation Models for Hierarchical Data with SQL and PHP and in my book SQL Antipatterns: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Database Programming.

CREATE TABLE ClosureTable (
  ancestor_id   INT NOT NULL REFERENCES FlatTable(id),
  descendant_id INT NOT NULL REFERENCES FlatTable(id),
  PRIMARY KEY (ancestor_id, descendant_id)
);

Store all paths in the Closure Table, where there is a direct ancestry from one node to another. Include a row for each node to reference itself. For example, using the data set you showed in your question:

INSERT INTO ClosureTable (ancestor_id, descendant_id) VALUES
  (1,1), (1,2), (1,4), (1,6),
  (2,2), (2,4),
  (3,3), (3,5),
  (4,4),
  (5,5),
  (6,6);

Now you can get a tree starting at node 1 like this:

SELECT f.* 
FROM FlatTable f 
  JOIN ClosureTable a ON (f.id = a.descendant_id)
WHERE a.ancestor_id = 1;

The output (in MySQL client) looks like the following:

+----+
| id |
+----+
|  1 | 
|  2 | 
|  4 | 
|  6 | 
+----+

In other words, nodes 3 and 5 are excluded, because they're part of a separate hierarchy, not descending from node 1.

Re: comment from e-satis about immediate children (or immediate parent). You can add a "path_length" column to the ClosureTable to make it easier to query specifically for an immediate child or parent (or any other distance).

INSERT INTO ClosureTable (ancestor_id, descendant_id, path_length) VALUES
  (1,1,0), (1,2,1), (1,4,2), (1,6,1),
  (2,2,0), (2,4,1),
  (3,3,0), (3,5,1),
  (4,4,0),
  (5,5,0),
  (6,6,0);

Then you can add a term in your search for querying the immediate children of a given node. These are descendants whose path_length is 1.

SELECT f.* 
FROM FlatTable f 
  JOIN ClosureTable a ON (f.id = a.descendant_id)
WHERE a.ancestor_id = 1
  AND path_length = 1;

+----+
| id |
+----+
|  2 | 
|  6 | 
+----+

Re comment from @ashraf: "How about sorting the whole tree [by name]?"

Here's an example query to return all nodes that are descendants of node 1, join them to the FlatTable that contains other node attributes such as name, and sort by the name.

SELECT f.name
FROM FlatTable f 
JOIN ClosureTable a ON (f.id = a.descendant_id)
WHERE a.ancestor_id = 1
ORDER BY f.name;

Re comment from @Nate:

SELECT f.name, GROUP_CONCAT(b.ancestor_id order by b.path_length desc) AS breadcrumbs
FROM FlatTable f 
JOIN ClosureTable a ON (f.id = a.descendant_id) 
JOIN ClosureTable b ON (b.descendant_id = a.descendant_id) 
WHERE a.ancestor_id = 1 
GROUP BY a.descendant_id 
ORDER BY f.name

+------------+-------------+
| name       | breadcrumbs |
+------------+-------------+
| Node 1     | 1           |
| Node 1.1   | 1,2         |
| Node 1.1.1 | 1,2,4       |
| Node 1.2   | 1,6         |
+------------+-------------+

A user suggested an edit today. SO moderators approved the edit, but I am reversing it.

The edit suggested that the ORDER BY in the last query above should be ORDER BY b.path_length, f.name, presumably to make sure the ordering matches the hierarchy. But this doesn't work, because it would order "Node 1.1.1" after "Node 1.2".

If you want the ordering to match the hierarchy in a sensible way, that is possible, but not simply by ordering by the path length. For example, see my answer to MySQL Closure Table hierarchical database - How to pull information out in the correct order.

Git – Unable to show a Git tree in terminal

How can you get the tree-like view of commits in terminal?

git log --graph --oneline --all

is a good start.

You may get some strange letters. They are ASCII codes for colors and structure. To solve this problem add the following to your .bashrc:

export LESS="-R"

such that you do not need use Tig's ASCII filter by

git log --graph --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit | tig   // Masi needed this

The article text-based graph from Git-ready contains other options:

git log --graph --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit

git log graph

Regarding the article you mention, I would go with Pod's answer: ad-hoc hand-made output.

Jakub Narębski mentions in the comments tig, a ncurses-based text-mode interface for git. See their releases.
It added a --graph option back in 2007.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Sql – the most efficient/elegant way to parse a flat table into a tree

Git – Unable to show a Git tree in terminal

Related Topic