dig: Search for patterns of a custom type

In nuggets: Extensible Framework for Data Pattern Exploration

Search for patterns of a custom type

Description

A general function for searching for patterns of a custom type. The function allows selection of columns of x to be used as condition predicates. It enumerates all possible conditions in the form of elementary conjunctions of selected predicates, and for each condition executes a user-defined callback function f. The callback is expected to perform some analysis and return an object (often a list) representing a pattern or patterns related to the condition. The results of all calls are returned as a list.

Usage

dig(
  x,
  f,
  condition = everything(),
  focus = NULL,
  disjoint = var_names(colnames(x)),
  excluded = NULL,
  min_length = 0,
  max_length = Inf,
  min_support = 0,
  min_focus_support = 0,
  min_conditional_focus_support = 0,
  max_support = 1,
  filter_empty_foci = FALSE,
  t_norm = "goguen",
  max_results = Inf,
  verbose = FALSE,
  threads = 1L,
  error_context = list(arg_x = "x", arg_f = "f", arg_condition = "condition", arg_focus =
    "focus", arg_disjoint = "disjoint", arg_excluded = "excluded", arg_min_length =
    "min_length", arg_max_length = "max_length", arg_min_support = "min_support",
    arg_min_focus_support = "min_focus_support", arg_min_conditional_focus_support =
    "min_conditional_focus_support", arg_max_support = "max_support",
    arg_filter_empty_foci = "filter_empty_foci", arg_t_norm = "t_norm", arg_max_results =
    "max_results", arg_verbose = "verbose", 
     arg_threads = "threads", call =
    current_env())
)

Arguments

x	A matrix or data frame. If a matrix, it must be numeric (double) or logical. If a data frame, all columns must be numeric (double) or logical.
f	A callback function executed for each generated condition. It may declare any subset of the arguments listed below. The algorithm detects which arguments are present and provides only those values to f. This design allows the user to control both the amount of information received and the computational cost, as some arguments are more expensive to compute than others. The function f is expected to return an object (typically a list) representing a pattern or patterns related to the condition. The results of all calls of f are collected and returned as a list. Possible arguments are: condition, sum, support, indices, weights, pp, pn, np, nn, or foci_supports (deprecated), which are thoroughly described below in the "Details" section.
condition	tidyselect expression (see tidyselect syntax) specifying columns of x to use as condition predicates
focus	tidyselect expression (see tidyselect syntax) specifying columns of x to use as focus predicates
disjoint	An atomic vector (length = number of columns in x) defining groups of predicates. Columns in the same group cannot appear together in a condition. With data from partition(), use var_names() on column names to construct disjoint.
excluded	NULL or a list of character vectors, each representing an implication formula. In each vector, all but the last element form the antecedent and the last element is the consequent. These formulae are treated as tautologies and used to filter out generated conditions. If a condition contains both the antecedent and the consequent of any such formula, it is not passed to the callback function f. Likewise, if a condition contains the antecedent, the corresponding focus (the consequent) is not passed to f.
min_length	Minimum number of predicates in a condition required to trigger the callback f. Must be \ge 0. If set to 0, the empty condition also triggers the callback.
max_length	Maximum number of predicates allowed in a condition. Conditions longer than max_length are not generated. If Inf, the only limit is the total number of available predicates. Must be \ge 0 and \ge min_length. This setting strongly influences both the number of generated conditions and the speed of the search.
min_support	Minimum support of a condition required to trigger f. Support is the relative frequency of the condition in x. For logical data, this is the proportion of rows where all condition predicates are TRUE. For numeric (double) data, support is the mean (over all rows) of the products of predicate values. Must be in [0,1]. If a condition’s support falls below min_support, recursive generation of its extensions is stopped. Thus, min_support directly affects search speed and the number of callback calls.
min_focus_support	Minimum support of a focus required for it to be passed to f. For logical data, this is the proportion of rows where both the condition and the focus are TRUE. For numeric (double) data, support is computed as the mean (over all rows) of a t-norm of predicate values (the t-norm is selected by t_norm). Must be in [0,1]. Foci with support below this threshold are excluded. Together with filter_empty_foci, this parameter influences both search speed and the number of triggered calls of f.
min_conditional_focus_support	Minimum conditional support of a focus within a condition. Defined as the relative frequency of rows where the focus is TRUE among those where the condition is TRUE. If sum (see support in Details) is the number of rows (or sum of truth degrees for fuzzy data) satisfying the condition, and pp (see pp[i] in Details) is the sum of truth degrees where both the condition and the focus hold, then conditional support is pp / sum. Must be in [0,1]. Foci below this threshold are not passed to f. Together with filter_empty_foci, this parameter influences search speed and the number of callback calls.
max_support	Maximum support of a condition to trigger f. Conditions with support above this threshold are skipped, but recursive generation of their supersets continues. Must be in [0,1].
filter_empty_foci	Logical; controls whether f is triggered for conditions with no remaining foci after filtering by min_focus_support or min_conditional_focus_support. If TRUE, f is called only when at least one focus remains. If FALSE, f is called regardless.
t_norm	T-norm used for conjunction of weights: "goedel" (minimum), "goguen" (product), or "lukas" (Łukasiewicz).
max_results	Maximum number of results (objects returned by the callback f) to store and return in the output list. When this limit is reached, generation of further conditions stops. Use a positive integer to enable early stopping; set to Inf to remove the cap.
verbose	Logical; if TRUE, print progress messages.
threads	Number of threads for parallel computation.
error_context	A list of details to be used when constructing error messages. This is mainly useful when dig() is called from another function and errors should refer to the caller’s argument names rather than those of dig(). The list must contain: arg_x – name of the argument x as a character string arg_f – name of the argument f as a character string arg_condition – name of the argument condition arg_focus – name of the argument focus arg_disjoint – name of the argument disjoint arg_excluded – name of the argument excluded arg_min_length – name of the argument min_length arg_max_length – name of the argument max_length arg_min_support – name of the argument min_support arg_min_focus_support – name of the argument min_focus_support arg_min_conditional_focus_support – name of the argument min_conditional_focus_support arg_max_support – name of the argument max_support arg_filter_empty_foci – name of the argument filter_empty_foci arg_t_norm – name of the argument t_norm arg_threads – name of the argument threads call – environment in which to evaluate error messages

Details

The callback function f may accept a number of arguments (see f argument description). The algorithm automatically provides condition-related information to f based on which arguments are present.

In addition to conditions, the function can evaluate focus predicates (foci). Foci are specified separately and are tested within each generated condition. Extra information about them is then passed to f.

Restrictions may be imposed on generated conditions, such as:

• minimum and maximum condition length (min_length, max_length);

• minimum condition support (min_support);

• minimum focus support (min_focus_support), i.e. support of rows where both the condition and the focus hold.

Let P be the set of condition predicates selected by condition and E be the set of focus predicates selected by focus. The function generates all possible conditions as elementary conjunctions of distinct predicates from P. These conditions are filtered using disjoint, excluded, min_length, max_length, min_support, and max_support.

For each remaining condition, all foci from E are tested and filtered using min_focus_support and min_conditional_focus_support. If at least one focus remains (or if filter_empty_foci = FALSE), the callback f is executed with details of the condition and foci. Results of all calls are collected and returned as a list.

Let C be a condition (C \subseteq P), F the set of filtered foci (F \subseteq E), R the set of rows of x, and \mu_C(r) the truth degree of condition C on row r. The parameters passed to f are defined as:

• condition: a named integer vector of column indices representing the predicates of C. Names correspond to column names.

• sum: a numeric scalar value of the number of rows satisfying C for logical data, or the sum of truth degrees for fuzzy data, sum = \sum_{r \in R} \mu_C(r).

• support: a numeric scalar value of relative frequency of rows satisfying C, supp = sum / |R|.

• pp, pn, np, nn: a numeric vector of entries of a contingency table for C and F, satisfying the Ruspini condition pp + pn + np + nn = |R|. The i-th elements of these vectors correspond to the i-th focus F_i from F and are defined as:

  • pp[i]: rows satisfying both C and F_i, pp_i = \sum_{r \in R} \mu_{C \land F_i}(r).

  • pn[i]: rows satisfying C but not F_i, pn_i = \sum_{r \in R} \mu_C(r) - pp_i.

  • np[i]: rows satisfying F_i but not C, np_i = \sum_{r \in R} \mu_{F_i}(r) - pp_i.

  • nn[i]: rows satisfying neither C nor F_i, nn_i = |R| - (pp_i + pn_i + np_i).

Value

A list of results returned by the callback function f.

Author(s)

Michal Burda

See Also

partition(), var_names(), dig_grid()

Examples

library(tibble)

# Prepare iris data
d <- partition(iris, .breaks = 2)

# Simple callback: return formatted condition names
dig(x = d,
    f = function(condition) format_condition(names(condition)),
    min_support = 0.5)

# Callback returning condition and support
res <- dig(x = d,
           f = function(condition, support) {
               list(condition = format_condition(names(condition)),
                    support = support)
           },
           min_support = 0.5)
do.call(rbind, lapply(res, as_tibble))

# Within each condition, evaluate also supports of columns starting with
# "Species"
res <- dig(x = d,
           f = function(condition, support, pp) {
               c(list(condition = format_condition(names(condition))),
                 list(condition_support = support),
                 as.list(pp / nrow(d)))
           },
           condition = !starts_with("Species"),
           focus = starts_with("Species"),
           min_support = 0.5,
           min_focus_support = 0)
do.call(rbind, lapply(res, as_tibble))

# Multiple patterns per condition based on foci
res <- dig(x = d,
           f = function(condition, support, pp) {
               lapply(seq_along(pp), function(i) {
                   list(condition = format_condition(names(condition)),
                        condition_support = support,
                        focus = names(pp)[i],
                        focus_support = pp[[i]] / nrow(d))
               })
           },
           condition = !starts_with("Species"),
           focus = starts_with("Species"),
           min_support = 0.5,
           min_focus_support = 0)

# Flatten result and convert to tibble
res <- unlist(res, recursive = FALSE)
do.call(rbind, lapply(res, as_tibble))

nuggets documentation built on Nov. 5, 2025, 6:25 p.m.