Graph transformation in constant time

  • Authors:
  • Mike Dodds;Detlef Plump

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Computer Science, The University of York;Department of Computer Science, The University of York

  • Venue:
  • ICGT'06 Proceedings of the Third international conference on Graph Transformations
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

We present conditions under which graph transformation rules can be applied in time independent of the size of the input graph: graphs must contain a unique root label, nodes in the left-hand sides of rules must be reachable from the root, and nodes must have a bounded outdegree. We establish a constant upper bound for the time needed to construct all graphs resulting from an application of a fixed rule to an input graph. We also give an improved upper bound under the stronger condition that all edges outgoing from a node must have distinct labels. Then this result is applied to identify a class of graph reduction systems that define graph languages with a linear membership test. In a case study we prove that the (non-context-free) language of balanced binary trees with backpointers belongs to this class.