treeto

Treeto is a hypothetical software library for modeling, storing, and manipulating tree-structured data. Designed to be language-neutral and lightweight, it provides a core data model for hierarchical information and a set of operations for traversal, querying, and mutation that can be implemented across programming languages.

Data model: The fundamental unit is a node with a type, a map of attributes, and an optional value. Nodes are connected by parent-child edges, forming trees. Treeto supports path addressing, predicates on attributes, and ordering constraints among siblings.

Operations: Traversal methods include preorder, postorder, and level-order. Mutation operations cover insertion, deletion, and reparenting of nodes, with optional immutability and versioning to support undo/redo flows. It also provides filtering, mapping, and aggregation utilities on trees.

Serialization and interchange: Treeto trees can be serialized to JSON-like and YAML-like textual formats and to a compact binary representation. It offers parsers and writers for common hierarchical data formats and a schema mechanism to validate structure and types.

Use cases: The model fits configuration trees, abstract syntax trees, taxonomies, and organizational hierarchies. It is intended for data processing pipelines, code analysis tools, and content-management workflows where hierarchical data is central.

History and community: As a hypothetical concept, Treeto has inspired discussions about tree-processing interfaces and cross-language interoperability. Real-world implementations may vary in API and licensing, with multiple projects exploring similar ideas.