Disclaimer - I know this isn't strict PHP Coding, but I didn't know where else to put it, and it wasn't covered in the Dos/Don'ts
I'm trying to make a solution to a specific problem, amd it's gonna take me a bit of thinking, but thats fine. My concern is 2 months/whatever from now I'll be nearly done and then find some library that does it for me. So, I'm asking if any of you know of a free prefferably open source PHP script/library that does the following:
Input:
Multiple Trees in the form of a MySQL Database
Where:
A tree is one or more nodes (each node having some random bit of info to it, Name, Phone, What-ever)
Each node can have infinite children (in practice it's no more than 7 really)
Each child has one and only one parent
There are no loops
Output:
An evenly spaced jpg image of each tree
For further explanation, imagine people reproduced like cells - to have a child you just split in two, a child has only one parent. And, starting with a handful of people, we let it grow for some finite amount of time. Not all people have children though - this is not uncommon at all.
The object is now to draw family trees. And draw them in such a way it is "nice-looking". IE a parent is centered over his children, I don't have a massive glob of empty space sitting over there because I put two huge trees next to each other when I could have put one big tree, 4 siblings, and the other big tree - common sense things you do yourself if you're doing it in say, Visio, but now needs to be put in an algorithm.
I poked around a little bit, but I didn't see anything on Sourceforge or Google trying to accomplish this, and I was wondering if anyone knew of anything.
And of course, sorry in advance if this is off-topic, and thanks in advance for any replies.
