Graph library for Python

[Tiago de Paula Peixoto]

On 12/13/2009 08:32 AM, anand jeyahar wrote:
>     A crucial element in this hypothetical module would be the main graph
>     data structure. The simplest approach would be to implement it in pure
>     python, with lists, dicts and such, as many libraries do. However, this
>     would rule out its use by high-performance code, which would need a
>     simpler C-based data structure for direct interaction. On the other
>     hand, I'm not sure if there is a need for a high performance graph
>     module in python's standard library...
> 
> I disagree...I am not sure of the current need in terms of a precise
> survey.....But IMO, as bearophile pointed out.....networkx is the most
> popular........and from their claims it is targeted at mathematicians,
> physicists, biologists, computer scientists, social scientists.
> 
> Given the current trend in the growth of social and professional
> networks..... and social scientists (Disclaimer: i aspire to be one).. i
> do expect a growing demand for graph data structures and high
> performance ones soon enough..
> 
>  so IMHO if we are going in for it we should go for the high performance
> graphs too..

I certainly think it is important to have a high-performance graph
library, that is why I started to write one. I was talking simply about
its inclusion in the standard library. Since something as basic for
scientific computing as, for instance, numpy does not belong in the
standard library, I don't think it makes sense to push for the inclusion
of a scientific graph library. Could we (or rather should we) even make
it _independent_ of numpy?

But if the idea is to consolidate the existing graph libraries into an
uniform package, I'm certainly not against it in principle. But I think
we should first familiarize ourselves with the existing variants, to see
if there is really a common ground. The basic interface to the graph
data structure should not vary much, I believe, but the implementation
may. For instance, I chose in graph-tool to implement most of it in C++
with the Boost Graph Library...

When I get some time, I'll take a careful look at the implementations
listed in this thread, some of which I don't yet know.

Cheers,
Tiago


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