Flexible graph matching and graph edit distance using answer set programming

TL;DR

This paper introduces a flexible approach using answer set programming to solve graph matching and edit distance problems across various graph types, including labeled and property-annotated graphs, enabling rapid prototyping.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel, adaptable method based on answer set programming for defining and solving graph matching and edit distance problems on general property graphs.

Findings

Feasible as a rapid prototyping approach.

Works on synthetic and realistic graphs.

Handles diverse graph annotations and labels.

Abstract

The graph isomorphism, subgraph isomorphism, and graph edit distance problems are combinatorial problems with many applications. Heuristic exact and approximate algorithms for each of these problems have been developed for different kinds of graphs: directed, undirected, labeled, etc. However, additional work is often needed to adapt such algorithms to different classes of graphs, for example to accommodate both labels and property annotations on nodes and edges. In this paper, we propose an approach based on answer set programming. We show how each of these problems can be defined for a general class of property graphs with directed edges, and labels and key-value properties annotating both nodes and edges. We evaluate this approach on a variety of synthetic and realistic graphs, demonstrating that it is feasible as a rapid prototyping approach.