Attributed elementary programmed graph grammars

Abstract

A new mechanism for generating graph languages is introduced which is based on the controlled rewriting of graphs using only six elementary types of graph productions, namely the addition, the deletion and the renaming of a node or an edge. Although these elementary graph productions are acting strictly locally and no embedding transformations are needed, in the unrestricted and monotone case, elementary programmed graph grammars have the same generative power as expression graph grammars. As a graph with attributes assigned to its nodes and edges is an even more useful tool for the description of certain data structures than a directed graph, attributed elementary programmed graph grammars turn out to be adequate graph rewriting systems applicable in many areas of computer science.