Definition
A graph database is a database whose data model conforms to some form of graph (or network or link) structure. The graph data model usually consists of nodes (or vertices) and (directed) edges (or arcs or links), where the nodes represent concepts (or objects) and the edges represent relationships (or connections) between these concepts (objects). Therefore the nodes are typically labeled with the names of concepts or objects, while the edges are labeled with types of relationships. More elaborate labeling might involve sets of attribute-value pairs being associated with nodes and/or edges. In addition, more complex structures, such as nested graphs or hypergraphs, may also be permitted. On the other hand, the graph model may be restricted to allow only certain types of graph structures, for example, only acyclic graphs or those that have a distinguished root node.
Similar to relational databases, users can...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsRecommended Reading
Abiteboul S., Buneman P., and Suciu D. Data on the Web: From Relations to Semi-structured Data and XML. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, CA, 2000.
Angles R. and Gutierrez C. Querying RDF data from a graph database perspective. In Proc. 2nd European Semantic Web Conference, 2005, pp. 346–360.
Buneman P., Davidson S., Fernandez M., and Suciu D. Adding structure to unstructured data. In Proc. 6th Int. Conf. on Database Theory, 1997, pp. 336–350.
Consens M.P. and Mendelzon A.O. Hy+: a hygraph-based query and visualization system. In Proc. ACM SIGMOD Int. Conf. on Management of Data, 1993, pp. 511–516.
Fernandez M. and Suciu D. Optimizing regular path expressions using graph schemas. In Proc. 14th Int. Conf. on Data Engineering, 1998, pp. 14–23.
Goldman R. and Widom J. DataGuides: enabling query formulation and optimization in semi-structured databases. In Proc. 23th Int. Conf. on Very Large Data Bases, 1997, pp. 436–445.
Gyssens M., Paredaens J., den Bussche J.V., and Gucht D.V. A graph-oriented object database model. IEEE Trans. Knowl. Data Eng., 6(4):572–586, August 1994.
Harel D. On visual formalisms. Commun. ACM, 31(5):514–530, May 1988.
Mendelzon A.O. and Wood P.T. Finding regular simple paths in graph databases. SIAM J. Comput., 24(6):1235–1258, 1995.December
Milo T. and Suciu D. Index structures for path expressions. In Proc. 7th Int. Conf. on Database Theory, 1999, pp. 277–295.
Olken F. Graph data management for molecular biology. OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology, 7(1):75–78, 2003.
Poulovassilis A. and Levene M. A nested-graph model for the representation and manipulation of complex objects. ACM Trans. Inf. Syst., 12(1):35–68, 1994.January
Sheth A., Aleman-Meza1 B., Arpinar I.B., Bertram C., Warke Y., Ramakrishnan C., Halaschek C., Anyanwu K., Avant D., Arpinar F.S., and Kochut K. Semantic association identification and knowledge discovery for national security applications. J. Database Manag., 16(1):33–53, 2005.
Tompa F. W. A data model for flexible hypertext database systems. ACM Trans. Database Syst., 7(1):85–100, 1989.January
Yan X., Yu P.S., and Han J. Graph indexing: a frequent structure-based approach. In Proc. ACM SIGMOD Int. Conf. on Management of Data, 2004, pp. 335–346.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this entry
Cite this entry
Wood, P.T. (2009). Graph Database. In: LIU, L., ÖZSU, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-39940-9_183
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-39940-9_183
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-35544-3
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-39940-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceReference Module Computer Science and Engineering