# libgraph
[](https://travis-ci.org/bitwalker/libgraph)
[](https://hex.pm/packages/libgraph)
[Documentation](https://hexdocs.pm/libgraph)
## About
This library provides:
- An implementation of a graph datastructure, `Graph`, designed for both directed and undirected graphs, however
API support for undirected graph operations is lacking at the moment, as I'm primarily concerned with directed graphs
at the moment, however I will be working on pushing that support forward as soon as possible.
- A priority queue implementation `PriorityQueue`, oriented towards graphs (it prioritizes lower integer values over high),
it is the fastest priority queue I know of which allows arbitrary priorities, and is more or less at parity with
`pqueue3` from [the pqueue library](https://github.com/okeuday/pqueue/), which supports priorities from 0 to 65535.
- An idiomatic Elixir API for creating, modifying, and querying it's graph structure. Creating and modifying a graph
can be done in a single pipeline, and all queries take a Graph as their first parameter (one of my complaints with `:digraph`
is that there is some inconsistency with the API between `:digraph` and `:digraph_utils` for no apparent reason).
- A `Reducer` behaviour, for defining your own means of traversing a graph, and being able to use that with
the standard `libgraph` API. Two reducers, breadth-first and depth-first, are provided out of the box,
however this API is still early in development, so expect some changes here - at this time it is not fully
supported.
- A `Serializer` behaviour, for defining custom serialization of graphs, with a Graphviz DOT format serializer
provided out of the box.
It is backed by a large suite of tests, including several QuickCheck properties for the graph model. It's
API shares some similarity with `:digraph`, but diverges in favor of a more idiomatic Elixir interface. In
addition, over time I'm adding new functions to query the graph in ways not previously supported via `:digraph`,
and introducing support for classifying a graph as undirected if so desired, so that queries over such graphs
become easier.
## Installation
If [available in Hex](https://hex.pm/docs/publish), the package can be installed
by adding `libgraph` to your list of dependencies in `mix.exs`:
```elixir
def deps do
[{:libgraph, "~> 0.7"}]
end
```
## Rationale
The original motiviation for me to start working on this library is the fact that `:digraph` requires a
minimum of 3 ETS tables per graph, and up to 6 depending on the operations you are performing on the graph.
If you are working with a lot of graphs concurrently, as I am, this means you can find yourself in a situation
where you hit the system limit for the maximum number of ETS table, and bring your system down. Seeing as how
it is ridiculous that trying to use a simple graph could potentially kill my system, and not wanting to hack
around the problem, I decided to see if I could build an alternative which was competitive performance-wise,
without requiring any ETS tables at all.
The result turned out better than I hoped - it is possible to build a graph datastructure without ETS that
is both equally performant (and in many of my benchmarks, better performing), and supports all of the same
functionality.
Additionally, I also had a few other things I wanted to address:
- Inconsistency with argument order in the API between `:digraph` and `:digraph_utils`
- The fact that there are two modules to work with the same datastructure to begin with, and trying to remember
what lives where.
- The lack of extensibility, for example, there is no API with which you can implement your own
traversal algorithms. This means you are stuck with whatever way the Erlang maintainers decided was
ideal, regardless of whether it suits your use case or not. A great example is single-source shortest path
algorithms, where you may want a simple breadth-first search, or perhaps you want to use Dijkstra's algorithm -
you are stuck with just one approach with `:digraph`, which as I understand it, is a breadth-first search.
- `:digraph` as the name implies, only supports directed graphs
- `:digraph` graphs are unweighted, with no way to supported weighted graphs
- `:digraph` graphs are not "inspect-friendly", you get a tuple with the underlying ETS table ids, but that's it,
not necessarily a big deal, but it's nice for playing around in the shell if you can see how your code affects the
structure.
My speculation as to why `:digraph` is the way it is, is that when `:digraph` was originally written, there was
no efficient key/value datastructure in Erlang that could support large numbers of keys. At that time, maps
weren't even a speck in the eye of the language maintainers. Even after the initial introduction of maps in OTP 18,
maps still weren't efficient enough to work with large numbers of keys. It wasn't until OTP 19 that the performance
of maps with millions of keys became reasonable. So, it's not that `:digraph` sucks - it was the best possible implementation
at the time; but now that the language has come so far, we can take advantage of some of the new hotness and reinvent
it from the ground up :).
## Benchmarks
Feel free to take a look under the `bench` folder in the project root. There a few benchmarks I threw together to
keep an eye on a few key areas I wanted to ensure parity with `:digraph` on. You can run them yourself as well, but
I would encourage you to use them as a template to construct a benchmark based on your own use case, and compare them
that way, as it will give you a better basis to make your decision on. However, if you do find that `libgraph` is behind
`:digraph` with a benchmark, please let me know so that I can improve the library!
NOTE: While this library is primarily focused on the `Graph` data structure it defines, it also contains an implementation
of a priority queue (you can find it under the `PriorityQueue` module), designed for use with graphs specifically, as it
considers lower integer values higher priority, which is perfect for the kinds of graph algorithms you need a priority queue for.
## Roadmap
The following are items I plan to implement soon - they are not in any particular order.
- [ ] Improved support for undirected graphs
## License
MIT (See the LICENSE file)
