Bidirectionalizing graph transformations

Bidirectional transformations provide a novel mechanism for synchronizing and maintaining the consistency of information between input and output. Despite many promising results on bidirectional transformations, these have been limited to the context of relational or XML (tree-like) databases. We challenge the problem of bidirectional transformations within the context of graphs, by proposing a formal definition of a well-behaved bidirectional semantics for UnCAL, i.e., a graph algebra for the known UnQL graph query language. The key to our successful formalization is full utilization of both the recursive and bulk semantics of structural recursion on graphs. We carefully refine the existing forward evaluation of structural recursion so that it can produce sufficient trace information for later backward evaluation. We use the trace information for backward evaluation to reflect in-place updates and deletions on the view to the source, and adopt the universal resolving algorithm for in...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: ICFP
• Authors: Soichiro Hidaka, Zhenjiang Hu, Kazuhiro Inaba, Hiroyuki Kato, Kazutaka Matsuda, Keisuke Nakano
• Keywords: Bidirectional Transformation, ICFP 2010, Programming Languages, Structural Recursion, Well-behaved Bidirectional Semantics