Balder is the generic property [graph](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_(data_structure\)) model of the Vanaheimr research project. In contrast to other graph libraries and graph databases Balder focus is to provide a versatile and expressive graph interface to model your domain specific knowledge easily, to keep the quality of your data as high as possible and to achieve high-speed speed calculations in a distributed enviroment not by hoping for an optimization oracle, but by letting you choose and tweak the right optimizations.
Balder provides a property graph model with some currently unique features:
- Like any other graph model Balder provides vertices and edges which can hold any kind of properties (key/value pairs). Multiedges and hyperedges are a natural extention to this model and define graph elementes which connect multiple edges (multiedge) or multiple vertices (hyperedge). This allows Balder to be a fully self-contained graph model without the need of external indices for practical usage of graphs.
- A Balder graph provides 20 generic parameters for type-safety and to allow Balder to adapt to your domain model more easily. These parameters control the type of the unique identification, of the revision identification, of the label, of the property keys and of the property values of every graph element.
- Balder does not belief in OOP types, as it is nothing compared to the flexibility of e.g. RDF schema. Therefore Balder uses a light-weight approach of labels for every graph element to describe the intended nature of this graph element.
- Balder uses the Vanaheimr Styx project not only to provide a user-friendly way to query the graph, but also to provide a reactive graph. This allows you not only to review and control graph modifications, but also communicate between different graph instances and to use your graph both as an event source and an event filter.
- Balder uses its reactivity to feed dependent graphs. Such graphs are graphs not controlled by the user or application directly, but by another graph. This can be usefull if you need a better, faster or more memory efficient representation of graph data without loosing the flexibility of a Balder property graph.
- Schema graphs are an application of dependent graphs. A schema graph connected to your Balder graph can learn and/or control the schema of your graph and thus help to explore and to improve the overall quality of your data.
- Balder is read-only on default to improve the safety of your data and to provide a foundation for future multi-threading optimizations.
var _TinkerGraph = new PropertyGraph();
_TinkerGraph.OnVertexAdding += (graph, vertex, vote) => {
Console.WriteLine("I like all vertices!");
};
_TinkerGraph.OnVertexAdding += (graph, vertex, vote) =>
{
if (vertex.Id == 5) {
Console.WriteLine("I'm a Jedi!");
vote.Veto();
}
};
var marko = _TinkerGraph.AddVertex(1, v => v.SetProperty("name", "marko"). SetProperty("age", 29));
var vadas = _TinkerGraph.AddVertex(2, v => v.SetProperty("name", "vadas"). SetProperty("age", 27));
var lop = _TinkerGraph.AddVertex(3, v => v.SetProperty("name", "lop"). SetProperty("lang", "java"));
var josh = _TinkerGraph.AddVertex(4, v => v.SetProperty("name", "josh"). SetProperty("age", 32));
var vader = _TinkerGraph.AddVertex(5, v => v.SetProperty("name", "darth vader"));
var ripple = _TinkerGraph.AddVertex(6, v => v.SetProperty("name", "ripple").SetProperty("lang", "java"));
var peter = _TinkerGraph.AddVertex(7, v => v.SetProperty("name", "peter"). SetProperty("age", 35));
Console.WriteLine("Number of vertices added: " + _TinkerGraph.Vertices().Count());
marko.OnPropertyChanging += (sender, Key, oldValue, newValue, vote) =>
Console.WriteLine("'" + Key + "' property changing: '" + oldValue + "' -> '" + newValue + "'");
marko.OnPropertyChanged += (sender, Key, oldValue, newValue) =>
Console.WriteLine("'" + Key + "' property changed: '" + oldValue + "' -> '" + newValue + "'");
var _DynamicMarko = marko.AsDynamic();
_DynamicMarko.age += 100;
_DynamicMarko.doIt = (Action<String>) ((text) => Console.WriteLine("Some infos: " + text + "!"));
_DynamicMarko.doIt(_DynamicMarko.name + "/" + marko.GetProperty("age") + "/");
var e7 = _TinkerGraph.AddEdge(marko, vadas, 7, "knows", e => e.SetProperty("weight", 0.5));
var e8 = _TinkerGraph.AddEdge(marko, josh, 8, "knows", e => e.SetProperty("weight", 1.0));
var e9 = _TinkerGraph.AddEdge(marko, lop, 9, "created", e => e.SetProperty("weight", 0.4));
var e10 = _TinkerGraph.AddEdge(josh, ripple, 10, "created", e => e.SetProperty("weight", 1.0));
var e11 = _TinkerGraph.AddEdge(josh, lop, 11, "created", e => e.SetProperty("weight", 0.4));
var e12 = _TinkerGraph.AddEdge(peter, lop, 12, "created", e => e.SetProperty("weight", 0.2));
return _TinkerGraph;
Additional help and background information can be found in the Wiki.
For more examples and tutorials please look at the Bragi project if you are interessted
in simple but interactive graph visualizations consult the Loki project or look at Aegir for mapping applications.
News and updates can also be found on twitter by following: @ahzf or @graphdbs.
The installation of Blueprints.NET is very straightforward.
Just check out or download its sources and all its dependencies:
- NUnit for unit tests
- Newtonsoft.JSON for JSON processing
- Jurassic for JavaScript processing and networking
if you want to clone the entire Vanaheimr graph processing stack just run the following commands:
git clone git://github.com/Vanaheimr/Aegir
git clone git://github.com/Vanaheimr/Balder
git clone git://github.com/Vanaheimr/Blueprints.NET
git clone git://github.com/Vanaheimr/Bragi
git clone git://github.com/Vanaheimr/Eunomia
git clone git://github.com/Vanaheimr/Glyphe
git clone git://github.com/Vanaheimr/Hermod
git clone git://github.com/Vanaheimr/Illias
git clone git://github.com/Vanaheimr/Loki
git clone git://github.com/Vanaheimr/Styx
git clone git://github.com/Vanaheimr/Vanir
git clone git://github.com/Vanaheimr/Walkyr
git clone git://github.com/Vanaheimr/libs
mkdir srclibs
cd srclibs
git clone git://github.com/ahzf/MonoCompilerAsAService.git
git clone git://github.com/Alxandr/Jurassic.git
Blueprints.NET is released under the Apache License 2.0. For details see the LICENSE file.
To suggest a feature, report a bug or general discussion: http://github.com/Vanaheimr/Blueprints.NET/issues
If you want to help or contribute source code to this project, please use the same license.
The coding standards can be found by reading the code ;)
Blueprints.NET is a reimplementation of the Blueprints library for Java
provided by Tinkerpop. Additional ideas are based on the Boost Graph Library.
Please read the NOTICE file for further credits.