GrasGXL Theses: Graph Versioning

The Department of Computer Science III develops tools for very different application domains. These tools have in common that they are operating on complex documents which are represented by graphs. The graph-oriented DBMS Gras/GXL is used to store these graphs. Gras/GXL provides a universal graph model. On top of this universal graph model an application-specific graph model is realized. To ensure flexibility and scalability the graphs are stored in commercial or open-source databases like PostgreSQL or FastObjects.

Additional extensions are implemented as seperate layers between the universal Gras/GXL graph model and the application-specific graph model. These extensions provide further reaching capabilities to the user like query languages, graph versioning, etc. One of the planned extension allows the versioning of graphs and graph elements. One application domain of this extension is managing different versions of a document. Based on the extension additional extensions can be realized like undo/redo.

In the theses an extension has to implemented which supports the versioning of graphs and graph elements (nodes, edges, relations, etc.). This capability is required to store several versions of a document in a graph and to mantain the relationships between the versions (like in CVS). Based on this capability additional extensions can be realized like undo/redo as it as known from word processors (not part of this theses). For this theses the concepts of Gras/GXL's predecessor GRAS3 can be used.

Dipl.-Inform. Boris Böhlen

Thomas Lettow