Trivial Graph Format (TGF) is a simple text-based adjacency list file format for describing graphs,[1] widely used because of its simplicity.[2]

Format

The format consists of a list of node definitions, which map node IDs to labels, followed by a list of edges, which specify node pairs and an optional edge label. Because of its lack of standardization, the format has many variations.[1] For instance, some implementations of the format require the node IDs to be integers,[3] while others allow more general alphanumeric identifiers.

Each node definition is a single line of text starting with the node ID, separated by a space from its label. The node definitions are separated from the edge definitions by a line containing the "#" character. Each edge definition is another line of text, starting with the two IDs for the endpoints of the edge separated by a space. If the edge has a label, it appears on the same line after the endpoint IDs.[3]

The graph may be interpreted as a directed or undirected graph. For directed graphs, to specify the concept of bi-directionality in an edge, one may either specify two edges (forward and back) or differentiate the edge by means of a label.

Example

A simple graph with two nodes and one edge might look like: 

1 First node
2 Second node
#
1 2 Edge between the two

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Roughan, Matthew; Tuke, Jonathan (August 2015), "The Hitchhikers Guide to Sharing Graph Data" (PDF), 2015 3rd International Conference on Future Internet of Things and Cloud, IEEE, doi:10.1109/ficloud.2015.76, S2CID 14560300
  2. ^ Pitas, Ioannis (2016), "1.5 Graph storage formats and visualization", Graph-Based Social Media Analysis, Chapman & Hall/CRC Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery Series, vol. 39, CRC Press, p. 14, ISBN 9781498719056
  3. ^ a b Canabrava, Tomaz; Cord-Landwehr, Andreas (April 10, 2016), "Chapter 4. Import and Export", The Rocs Handbook, Revision Rocs 2.1.50 (Applications 16.04)

External links


Graph representations
Category