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Context-Free Graph Grammars

  • Chapter
Handbook of Formal Languages

Summary

Graph languages are sets of labeled graphs. They can be generated by graph grammars, and in particular by context-free graph grammars. There are several types of context-free graph grammars, depending, e.g., on whether (hyper)edges or nodes are rewritten by graphs. Basic properties of the main types of context-free graph grammars are discussed. Other, equivalent, ways of defining context-free graph languages are: generating graph expressions by regular tree grammars, and translating trees into graphs by formulas of monadic second-order logic. Context-free graph grammars can be used to generate string languages and tree languages.

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  1. Joost Engelfriet
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  1. Department of Computer Science, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9512, NL-2300 RA, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Grzegorz Rozenberg

  2. Turku Centre for Computer Science Data City, FIN-20520, Turku, Finland

    Arto Salomaa

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Engelfriet, J. (1997). Context-Free Graph Grammars. In: Rozenberg, G., Salomaa, A. (eds) Handbook of Formal Languages. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59126-6_3

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