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GraphGen : Procedurally Generated Graphs

Overview

GraphGen allows you to define and execute a generative graph grammar. Its purpose is to programmatically generate a graph.

The process usually starts with a small graph, perhaps just a single vertex A. Then we apply productions (remember your compiler class?) of the form LHS ==> RHS to transform a subgraph of the current graph into a new graph. For example, the production A ==> A->B says to find a subgraph that consists of a single vertex A, and transform it by adding a new vertex B and connecting the two with an edge. So if we start with A, we would end up with A->B. Doing this again would result in A->B1,B2 (A points to two vertices with label B). We repeat this process until the graph is as big as you want.

This particular implementation is "context-sensitive", which means you can have more than one vertex on the LHS. So you could have the following production A->B ==> A->C. This would find a subgraph A->B, remove B and all edges connected to it, add a new vertex C, and connect it to A.

Graph Transformation Semantics

It is important to understand how transformations are applied, as expressed by the productions. This is done in two parts: determining vertex equivalence between the LHS and RHS, and then applying transformations to convert the LHS subgraph into the RHS.

Vertex Equivalence

Given a production with a LHS graph and a RHS graph, the first step is to determine which vertices appear on both sides, and which appear on only one.

Vertices can be identified in three ways. First, a vertex can have an alphabetic label (e.g., A). Second, a vertex can have a number (e.g., 1). Third, both the label and number can be concatenated to form a vertex's name (e.g., A1).

We say that two vertex identifiers are equivalent if they refer to the same vertex. We define vertex equivalence by the following logic: If any vertex in the LHS or RHS has a number, then the vertex names are used to determine vertex equivalence, otherwise only the vertex label is used. For example...

  1. A ==> A : no vertex numbers; both A's are equivalent
  2. A1 ==> A : vertex numbers are used; the A on the LHS is different than the A on the RHS
  3. A ==> A2 : vertex numbers are used; the A on the LHS is different than the A on the RHS
  4. A1 ==> A1 : vertex numbers are used, and the vertex names are the same, so both vertices are equivalent

Graph Transformations

With the above definition of equivalence, we can then describe our model of graph transformation.

  1. Given a graph G and a production P, determine if the LHS of P can be found in G using a graph search algorithm. If the LHS can't be found, no transformations take place.
  2. Delete from G any vertex or edge that appears on the LHS that does not appear on the RHS
    • E.g., Given the production A->B ==> A, vertex B would be deleted from G
    • E.g., Given the production A->B ==> A,B, the edge between A and B would be deleted from G
  3. Add to G any vertex or edge that appears on the RHS that does not appear on the LHS
    • E.g., Given the production A ==> A,B, vertex B would be added to G
    • E.g., Given the production A ==> A->B, vertex B and the edge between A and B would be added to G

As a more complex example, consider the following production A1->A2 ==> A1->A->A2. This would find an occurrence of A->A in G and insert a new vertex with label A between them.

Grammar Specification

Graph transformations are specified in a graph grammar file. A sample grammar might be:

	# Sample Grammar File

	configuration {
		min_vertices = 10;
	}

	productions {
		A;	# start graph

		# Productions
		A ==> A -> B;
		A -> B ==> A -> B, A -> C;
		A -> C ==> C -> A;
	}

The configuration section currently supports one mandatory parameter min_vertices. This specifies when the transformation engine stops applying productions: when the resulting graph has at least the number of vertices given. In the example above, transformations are applied until the graph has at least 10 vertices. NB: It is generally assumed that productions add vertices, otherwise the transformation engine could enter an infinite loop.

The productions section specifies the starting graph and the set of productions to apply. The first graph in the productions section is the starting graph. All other lines should be of the form LHSgraph ==> RHSgraph where LHSgraph gives the subgraph to search for and RHSgraph gives the resulting subgraph.

Graph Language

The starting graph and the productions graphs are specified using a language based roughly on the dot language that is part of Graphviz.

Graph vertices are specified by a text label followed by an optional number. Edges are specified by a single arrow ->. Chains of vertices can be described by linking vertices with arrows like this: A->B->C->D->.... Commas separate "clauses" or separate chains of vertices. So A->B,A->C says that vertex A points to both vertex B and C.

Usage

You can use GraphGen either on the command line or programmatically. On the command line you may simply type python Generator.py GRAMMAR_FILE. This will generate a graph based on the information from the given grammar file. Alternatively, you may use GraphTool by instantiating Generator and invoking its methods.

Implementation

GraphGen consists of a parser that reads the grammar input file, and a "generator" that actually applies the productions to generate a graph. Underlying everything is the YapyGraph project that represents a directed graph and can perform subgraph (isomorphic) searches.

Parser Implementation

The grammar parser is implemented as a traditional top-down recursive descent parser and associated lexer. Classes include:

  • Token - a simple representation of a token with type and lexeme
  • Lexer - converts the input character stream into a stream of Tokens
  • Parser - reads the input Token stream from the Lexer and builds a dictionary of configuration options, and a list of Production objects
  • Production - provides a simple representation of a graph transformation production (e.g., A->B ==> A->C) with member variables lhs and rhs to represent the graph on the left-hand side and right-hand side, respectively.

Generator Implementation

Generator is the generation engine. Given a list of Production objects, and a starting graph G, uses graph isomorphic searching to find instances of a LHS in G and transforms the LHS with the RHS. The engine continues to randomly apply these transformations until G contains a given number of vertices. This assumes that the productions generally increase the number of vertices.