Search for: All records

In 2013, we released a position paper to launch a community effort to define a common set of building blocks for constructing graph algorithms in the language of linear algebra. This led to the GraphBLAS. We released a specification for the C programming language binding to the GraphBLAS in 2017. Since that release, multiple libraries that conform to the GraphBLAS C specification have been produced. In this position paper, we launch the next phase of this ongoing community effort: a project to assemble a set of high level graph algorithms built on top of the GraphBLAS. While many of these algorithms are well-known with high quality implementations available, they have not been assembled in one place and integrated with the GraphBLAS. We call this project the LAGraph graph algorithms project and with this position paper, we put out a call for collaborators to join us. While the initial goal is to just assemble these algorithms into a single framework, the long term goal is a library of production-worthy code, with the LAGraph library serving as an open source repository of verified graph algorithms that use the GraphBLAS. 

The purpose of the GraphBLAS Forum is to standardize linear-algebraic building blocks for graph computations. An important part of this standardization effort is to translate the mathematical specification into an actual Application Programming Interface (API) that (i) is faithful to the mathematics and (ii) enables efficient implementations on modern hardware. This paper documents the approach taken by the C language specification subcommittee and presents the main concepts, constructs, and objects within the GraphBLAS API. Use of the API is illustrated by showing an implementation of the betweenness centrality algorithm.