Re: [boost] directed graph template library

From: David Bien (davidbien_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-04-20 04:05:48

> That work is not limited to undirected graphs. It isn't simple, but 
lots of
> thought went into it. It really is worth understanding.
Are you referring to the boost section ?
I read and I think I understood the two files in the boost section 
relating to graphs. "graph_structure.hpp" seems to address the names 
of iterator types, and declare an adjacency iterator. 
"property_accessor.html" is some type of generic property 
accessing/modifying templates, that I can't see how is particularly 
related to graphs.
Then I see a list of algorthms and whether they apply to a 
undirected, directed, or directed acyclic graphs. Now, I have to 
admit that I don't know squat about any of those algorithms, so my 
level of understanding there was probably pretty low.
The "ggcl" section seemed to contain an entire implementation of some 
sort - but I have to admit that the lack of any documentation or 
examples of its use limits my understanding of it. Certainly, I would 
like to spend the months of coding time it would take to merge my 
library with another, when I could be writing new code :-)

Anyway, I have a directed graph *implementation* - for which I 
happened to define my own type names and interface names. This was 
not meant as an affront to anyone associated with boost, I did not 
even know about boost until about 5 days ago. This implementation 
could be good for a number of things, like:
- 3d scene graph
- image composition graph
- NFA/DFA representation - say for a parser or lexical analyzer
- any number of other uses that a directed graph implemented in this
   manner might be useful for ( I'm sure many of you know better 
   than me )
It is written to not maintain any internal state except for graph 
structure - no node count, no link count, no flags, no properties, 
etc. In this regard it is like most STL containers and most like an 
STL list. 

Anyway, I will get it out on anonomous FTP, but it has its own 
namespace and stuff and probably currently only compiles on the 
intel4.0 compiler - though, unless it breaks gcc ( always a 
possibility ) it should compile on it with very little work.

Dave