tulpa_bar_field_specs: Expand a varying-coefficient bar into per-column field specs

In tulpa: Templated Unified Library for Posterior Approximation in Bayesian Hierarchical Models

Expand a varying-coefficient bar into per-column field specs

Description

Expand the left-hand side of an lme4-style varying-coefficient bar (~ 1 + w || node) against a data frame into one descriptor per design matrix column. This is the same expansion spatial() and the inline temporal() field constructor use internally to turn a bar into one CAR / temporal field per design column, exposed so a downstream package can reuse the one implementation rather than re-parsing the bar grammar.

The bar's right-hand side names the node index (the graph node for a spatial field, the time index for a temporal field); it is not expanded but is returned as the node attribute. The left-hand side is expanded with stats::model.matrix(): the intercept column (1) is the unweighted (all-ones) field, and each covariate column is a varying coefficient whose per-observation weight is that column's design value (⁠0 +⁠ drops the intercept).

Usage

tulpa_bar_field_specs(formula, data)

Arguments

formula	A one-sided formula carrying a single grouping bar, e.g. ~ 1 + w || cell. Use tulpa_is_spatial_bar() to test first. The right-hand side must be a single bare column naming the node index; nesting (a / b), interaction (a:b), or expression grouping is rejected.
data	A data frame whose columns the bar left-hand side and the node index refer to. The per-column weight vectors are evaluated against it, so they have nrow(data) entries.

Value

A list with one element per design-matrix column, each a list:

column_name

character; "Intercept" for the intercept column, otherwise the model.matrix() column name (e.g. "w").

weight

a numeric vector of length nrow(data) for a covariate column (the per-observation design value scaling that field), or NULL for the intercept column (which is the all-ones, unweighted field).

is_intercept

logical; TRUE for the intercept column.

The list carries two attributes: node (character, the node-index column named by the bar right-hand side) and correlated (logical, TRUE for a single |, FALSE for a double ||).

See Also

tulpa_is_spatial_bar() for the recognizer, spatial() for the inline areal field constructor that consumes this expansion.

Examples

d <- data.frame(cell = rep(1:5, each = 4), w = rnorm(20))

# Intercept plus a varying slope on w
specs <- tulpa_bar_field_specs(~ 1 + w || cell, d)
length(specs)                 # 2
specs[[1]]$column_name        # "Intercept"
is.null(specs[[1]]$weight)    # TRUE (unweighted field)
specs[[2]]$column_name        # "w"
identical(specs[[2]]$weight, d$w)  # TRUE
attr(specs, "node")           # "cell"

tulpa documentation built on Oct. 19, 2026, 5:09 p.m.