coryodaniel/arbor

---

coryodaniel/arbor.json

{
  "createdAt": "2016-11-07T01:19:26Z",
  "defaultBranch": "master",
  "description": "Ecto elixir adjacency list and tree traversal. Supports Ecto versions 2 and 3.",
  "fullName": "coryodaniel/arbor",
  "homepage": "",
  "language": "Elixir",
  "name": "arbor",
  "pushedAt": "2022-08-27T20:20:40Z",
  "stargazersCount": 241,
  "topics": [],
  "updatedAt": "2025-08-26T21:46:09Z",
  "url": "https://github.com/coryodaniel/arbor"
}

Arbor

Ecto adjacency list and tree traversal using CTEs. Arbor uses a parent_id field and CTEs to create simple deep tree-like SQL hierarchies.

Installation

If available in Hex, the package can be installed as:

Add arbor to your list of dependencies in mix.exs:

For Ecto SQL 3+:

  def deps do
    [{:arbor, "~> 1.1.0"}]
  end

For Ecto 2:

  def deps do
    [{:arbor, "~> 1.0.6"}]
  end

Benchmarks

Arbor has been benchmarked on 10mm+ record tables with efficient results:

10,000,000 rows, 25% root

Running siblings
  10000 runs
  Total time: 1.793026000000013
  Avg: 1.7930260000000131e-4
Running children
  10000 runs
  Total time: 1.5967949999999786
  Avg: 1.5967949999999787e-4
Running descendants
  10000 runs
  Total time: 2.5418830000000012
  Avg: 2.5418830000000013e-4
Running ancestors
  10000 runs
  Total time: 2.87076499999998
  Avg: 2.87076499999998e-4

Usage

defmodule Comment do
  use Ecto.Schema
  # See config options below
  use Arbor.Tree, foreign_key_type: :binary_id

  schema "comments" do
    field :body, :string
    belongs_to :parent, __MODULE__

    timestamps
  end
end

All methods return composable Ecto queries. For in depth examples see the [tests]!(./test/arbor)

Roots

Returns root level records.

roots = Comment.roots
        |> Repo.all

Siblings

Return the siblings of a record.

siblings = my_comment
           |> Comment.siblings
           |> Comment.order_by_popularity
           |> Repo.all

ancestors

Returns the entire ancestor (parent’s parent’s parent, etc) path to the record, but not including the record.

ancestors = my_comment
              |> Comment.ancestors
              |> Comment.order_by_inserted_at
              |> Repo.all

Descendants

Returns the entire descendant tree of a record, but not including the record.

descendants = my_comment
              |> Comment.descendants
              |> Comment.order_by_inserted_at
              |> Repo.all

A second parameter can be passed to descendants to specify how deep from the root of the tree to retrieve the descendants from.

descendants = my_comment
              |> Comment.descendants(2)
              |> Comment.order_by_inserted_at
              |> Repo.all

Children

Returns the immediate children of a record.

children = my_comment
           |> Comment.children
           |> Repo.all

Parent

Returns the record’s parent.

parent = my_comment
         |> Comment.parent
         |> Repo.first

Options

• table_name - set the table name to use in CTEs
• tree_name - set the name of the CTE
• primary_key - defaults to field from Ecto’s @primary_key
• primary_key_type - defaults to type from Ecto’s @primary_key
• foreign_key - defauts to :parent_id
• foreign_key_type - defaults to type from Ecto’s @primary_key
• orphan_strategy - defaults to :nothing currently unimplemented

Contributing

You’ll need PostgreSQL installed and a user that can create and drop databases.

There is a docker-compose file for your convienence.

You can specify it with the environment variable ARBOR_DB_USER.

The mix test task will drop and create the database for each run.

docker-compose up -d
ARBOR_DB_USER=postgres mix test
docker-compose down