tagcoll - perform various operations on tagged collections.

tagcoll [options] [command] [arguments...]

tagcoll is a commandline utility to manage tagged collections.

A tagged collection is a set of items in which each item is associated with a set of zero or more tags, in no particular order.

tagcoll can take a tagged collection and perform various complex operations on it, like applying transformations, finding implicit implications between tags and building a smart intuitive hierarchy to navigate the items.

tagcoll always requires a non-switch argument, that indicates what is the operation that should be performed:

copy [file]

Output the normalized collection on standard output, applying transformations if requested. This is the default action if no other switches are provided. A normalized collection is a collection in which an item appears in just one line.

reverse [file]

Output the inbound collection "reversed" from the tags point of view, that is, associating to each tag the list of items associated to it in the input. The --untagged-tag switch can be used to provide a name to which untagged items will be associated in the output.

diff <file1> [file2]

Output a tag patch file with the differences between two files (requires two file arguments). The output tag patch file can then be applied when reading a collection with the --patch-with option.

related <tag(s)> [file]

Output a list of the items that are related to the given item or list of items. If more than one items are to be specified, separate them with commas. For example:

	tagcoll related mutt,mozilla-browser -

The --distance option can be used to control how closely related the output items shold be from the item(s) specified.

implications [file]

Output a list of all implicit implications between tags contained in the hierarchy. Implication is defined such that tag A implies tag B if every item tagged with A is also tagged with B. Implications can be used to discover implicit hierarchical relationships between tags.

The output is one line per tag, with just tags that have implications, with the name of the package, a colon and a comma-separated list of all implied tags.

For example:

	C:devel,languages
	ada:devel,languages
	apachemodules:net,servers,web
	browsers:net,web

hierarchy [file]

Organize the collection in an intuitively navigable hierarchy. The output is one line per package, with the package name prepended by the path to the item in the hierarchy. For example:

	/net/clients/mail: mutt
	/net/filters/mail: procmail

A detailed description of the hierarchy generation algorithm is found in the tagbk-draft.pdf draft paper available in this package; if you want to understand what are the goals of the algorithm and how it works, please give it a read.

cleanhiearchy [file]

Like hiearchy, but in every node it merges tags which are attached to the same set of items.

This program follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes (`-').

--help

Print an help message and exit.

--version

Print the program version and exit.

-p, --patch-with=file

Apply patches from the given tag patch file when reading the collection.

-i, --implications-from=file

Use an external list of explicit implications when reading the collection.

-e, --derived-tags-from=file

Use an external list of derived tags when reading the collection.

-r, --rename-from=file

When reading the collection, rename the tags using the given mapping list.

-x, --expanded-output

Produce output data in full (and redundant) form. If not specified, tagcoll produces the minimal amount of data that full represents the output.

-d, --distance=num

Set the maximum distance to use for the "related" command (defaults to 0).

-f, --filter=num

Filter out tags whose cardinality is less than the given value.

--flatten-threshold=num

When using the "hierarchy" command, set the a threshold of total child items below which all items in all children of a node appear only attached to the node itself. Defaults to 0, meaning "don't flatten small subnodes".

--untagged-tag=name

Set the item name to use for associating untagged items when using the "reverse" command. If not specified, untagged items are not included in the "reverse" output.

A sequence of lines describing the tagged items. Order of tags does not matter. Each line starts with the item name, optionally followed by tag names.

Tag names are separated by the item name by a colon and one or more spaces or tabs.

Tag names are separated by each others using a comma followed by one or more spaces.

Item names can contain colons, but not followed by a space or tab, and cannot end in a colon. "ui:gnome" is ok, "ui:" is not.

Tag names can contain commas, but not followed by a space, and cannot end in a comma. "cult,religion" is ok, "cult," is not.

An item with tags tag1, tag2, ..., tagN is represented as:

	item: tag1, tag2, ..., tagN

An item with just tag1 is represented as:

	item: tag1

An item without tags is represented as:

	item:

or just as:

	item

An example input:

	mutt: clients/mail/net
	sylpheed: clients/mail/net
	procmail: filters/mail/net
	spamassassin: filters/mail/net
	spamfilter: filters/mail/net
	bulkmail: lists/mail/net
	mailman: lists/mail/net
	smartlist: lists/mail/net
	xeukleides: educational
	new-package-not-yet-categorized:
	another-uncategorized

The format for the explicit implications is the same as the one for the tagged collection: put the name of a tag at the left of the colon and the names of the tags it implies to the right.

Example:

	C: language, devel
	gnome: gui, ui, x11

The format for the rename mappings is the same as the one for the tagged collection: put the new name of the tags at the left of the colon and the names of the old tags to be renamed on the right.

Example:

	mp3: MP3
	language: languages, devel::language, devel::languages

The format for the rename mappings is the same as the one for the tagged collection, but the tags are listed prepended with a `+' or `-' sign. A tag prepended with a `+' sign is added to the item, while a tag with a `-' sign is removed from it.

Example:

	cappuccino: +essential
	emacs: +otheros, -editor

The format for the derived tag list is a line-oriented format with a derived tag per line. The derived tag name starts as the begining of the line and is separated by his tag expression by colon and space, just like the tagged collection items.

The tag expression is an expression composed of tags and the operators `&&' (and), `||' (or), '!' (not) and the parenthesis '(' and ')'.

Example:

	userlevel::novice: !specialized && (interface::gui || interface::curses)

The tag at the left of the colon is added when the set of tags of an item matches the expression at the right of the colon.

# Output the collection in normal form
tagcoll copy collection-file

# Output the items associated to a given tag tagcoll reverse collection-file | grep ^tag:

# Produce tag patch data describing the tag difference between two collections tagcoll diff coll1 coll2

# Apply a tag patch file to coll1 tagcoll --patch-with=tagpatch copy coll1 > collection-file

# Show the minimal set of implicit implications contained in the collection tagcoll implications collection-file

# Show the implicit implications contained in the collection, fully expanded tagcoll --expanded-output implications collection-file

# Build a smart hierarchy with the collection tagcoll hierarchy collection-file

# Build a cleaner smart hierarchy with the collection (yoy might like to tweak # the parameters) tagcoll -f 5 --flatten-threshold=5 cleanhierarchy collection-file

# Apply some transformations to the collection and build a smart hierarchy with # them tagcoll --implications-from=explicit-implications-file \ --rename-from=rename-map \ --patch-with=patch-file \ hierarchy collection-file

# Merge the contents two collections cat coll1 coll2 | tagcoll copy > merged

# Merge the contents two collections and apply an external patch cat coll1 coll2 | tagcoll --patch-with=patch-file copy > merged

# Build a smart hierarchy out of the implicit implications contained in the # collection tagcoll implications collection-file | tagcoll hierarchy

# Build a smart hierarchy out of the combination of explicit implications and # the implicit implications contained in the collection tagcoll --implications-from=explicit-implications-file \ implications collection-file | tagcoll hierarchy

# Show all the items similar to "mutt" tagcoll related mutt collection-file

# Show all the items similar to "mutt" and "mozilla-browser" tagcoll related mutt,mozilla-browser collection-file

# Show all the items similar to "mutt", with at most two differences # in the tag set tagcoll --distance=2 related mutt collection-file

The tagbk draft paper in /usr/share/doc/tagcoll.

tagcoll has been written by Enrico Zini <enrico@debian.org> for the purpose of experimenting with tagged collections and related algorithms: all possible feedback and ideas are thus more than welcome.

Erich Schubert, Herv['e] Eychenne, and many others have contributed a great deal of feedback and ideas.