Structural properties of context-free sets of graphs generated by vertex replacement

Abstract

We establish that a Vertex Replacement set of graphs, i.e., a set of graphs generated by a C-edNCE or, equivalently, by a separated handle rewriting graph grammar is Hyperedge Replacement, i.e., is generated by a hyperedge replacement graph grammar, iff its graphs do not contain arbitrary large complete bipartite graphs Kn, n as subgraphs. Another equivalent condition is that its graphs have a number of edges that is linearly bounded in terms of the number of vertices. These properties are decidable by means of an appropriate extension of the theorem by Parikh that characterizes the commutative images of context-free languages. We extend these results to hypergraphs. © 1995 Academic Press, Inc.