GMTE: A tool for graph transformation and exact/inexact graph matching

Abstract

Multi-labelled graphs are a powerful and versatile tool for modelling real applications in diverse domains such as communication networks, social networks, and autonomic systems, among others. Due to dynamic nature of such kind of systems the structure of entities is continuously changing along the time, this because, it is possible that new entities join the system, some of them leave it or simply because the entities' relations change. Here is where graph transformation takes an important role in order to model systems with dynamic and/or evolutive configurations. Graph transformation consists of two main tasks: graph matching and graph rewriting. At present, few graph transformation tools support multi-labelled graphs. To our knowledge, there is no tool that support inexact graph matching for the purpose of graph transformation. Also, the main problem of these tools lies on the limited expressiveness of rewriting rules used, that negatively reduces the range of application scenarios to be modelling and/or negatively increase the number of rewriting rules to be used. In this paper, we present the tool GMTE - Graph Matching and Transformation Engine. GMTE handles directed and multi-labelled graphs. In addition, to the exact graph matching, GMTE handles the inexact graph matching. The approach of rewriting rules used by GMTE combines Single PushOut rewriting rules with edNCE grammar. This combination enriches and extends the expressiveness of the graph rewriting rules. In addition, for the graph matching, GMTE uses a conditional rule schemata that supports complex comparison functions over labels. To our knowledge, GMTE is the first graph transformation tool that offers such capabilities. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.