Strategic port graph rewriting: an interactive modelling framework

Abstract

We present strategic port graph rewriting as a basis for the implementation of visual modelling tools. The goal is to facilitate the specification and programming tasks associated with the modelling of complex systems. A system is represented by an initial graph and a collection of graph rewrite rules, together with a user-defined strategy to control the application of rules. The traditional operators found in strategy languages for term rewriting have been adapted to deal with the more general setting of graph rewriting, and some new constructs have been included in the strategy language to deal with graph traversal and management of rewriting positions in the graph. We give a formal semantics for the language, and describe its implementation: the graph transformation and visualisation tool Porgy.