New read.simmap() function

OK, I have an "alpha" version of a new read.simmap() function that can read in a stochastic character mapped (SIMMAP v1.0) style tree from file in "phylip" format and retains the ordering of the character states along the edges of the tree. Although it is incomplete (by definition), I have posted this function on my R phylogenetics development page here (it is v0.2.alpha of read.simmap()).

The way I decided to store the information about the order and time spent in each state on every edge was in a list of named vectors called $maps. For backward compatibility with my other functions using SIMMAP format trees (e.g., brownie.lite()) I also compute the matrix $mapped.edge containing the summed times spent in each state along each edge of the tree.

So, for the following phylogeny:

((A:{aqua,0.3:terr,0.4:aqua,0.3},B:{aqua,1.0}):{aqua,1.0},(C:{aqua,0.25:terr,0.75},D:{aqua,1.0}):{aqua,1.0});

the modified "phylo" object returned by my function has the following structure:

> temp<-"((A:{aqua,0.3:terr,0.4:aqua,0.3},B:{aqua,1.0}):{aqua,1.0},(C:{aqua,0.25:terr,0.75},D:{aqua,1.0}):{aqua,1.0});"
> tree<-read.simmap.alpha(text=temp)
> tree$Nnode
[1] 3
> tree$tip.label
[1] "A" "B" "C" "D"
> tree$edge
[,1] [,2]
[1,] 5 6
[2,] 6 1
[3,] 6 2
[4,] 5 7
[5,] 7 3
[6,] 7 4
> tree$edge.length
[1] 1 1 1 1 1 1
> tree$maps
[[1]]
aqua
1
[[2]]
aqua terr aqua
0.3 0.4 0.3
[[3]]
aqua
1
[[4]]
aqua
1
[[5]]
aqua terr
0.25 0.75
[[6]]
aqua
1
> tree$mapped.edge
state
edge aqua terr
5,6 1.00 0.00
6,1 0.60 0.40
6,2 1.00 0.00
5,7 1.00 0.00
7,3 0.25 0.75
7,4 1.00 0.00

Next, I will add the capacity to read "nexus" format SIMMAP v1.0 style trees.