Synonyms
Link database; Network database; Semi-structured database
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...
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Wood, P.T. (2018). Graph Database. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_183
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