Chapter - 12

GRAPH MATRICES
AND
APPLICATIONS
 Problem with Pictorial
Graphs
 Graphs were introduced as an abstraction of
software structure.
 Whenever a graph is used as a model, sooner or
later we trace paths through it- to find a set of
covering paths, a set of values that will sensitize
paths, the logic function that controls the flow, the
processing time of the routine, the equations that
define the domain, or whether a state is reachable
or not.
 Path is not easy, and it’s subject to error. You can
miss a link here and there or cover some links
twice.
 One solution to this problem is to represent the
graph as a matrix and to use matrix operations
equivalent to path tracing. These methods are
more methodical and mechanical and don’t
depend on your ability to see a path they are more
 Tool Building
 If you build test tools or want to know
how they work, sooner or later you
will be implementing or investigating
analysis routines based on these
methods.
 It is hard to build algorithms over
visual graphs so the properties or
graph matrices are fundamental to
tool building.
 The Basic Algorithms
 The basic tool kit consists of:
 Matrix multiplication, which is used to get
the path expression from every node to
every other node.
 A partitioning algorithm for converting
graphs with loops into loop free graphs or
equivalence classes.
 A collapsing process which gets the path
expression from any node to any other
node.
 The Matrix Of A Graph
 A graph matrix is a square array with one row and one column for
every node in the graph.
 Each row-column combination corresponds to a relation between
the node corresponding to the row and the node corresponding to
the column.
 The relation for example, could be as simple as the link name, if
there is a link between the nodes.
 Some of the things to be observed:
 The size of the matrix equals the number of nodes.
 There is a place to put every possible direct connection or link
between any and any other node.
 The entry at a row and column intersection is the link weight of
the link that connects the two nodes in that direction.
 A connection from node i to j does not imply a connection from
node j to node i.
 If there are several links between two nodes, then the entry is a
sum; the “+” sign denotes parallel links as usual.
 Some Graphs and their
Matrices A

1 0 1 A

a
a
1 2

a
a b
1 2
b
 3 a c
1 2
b
4
d
 A simple weight
 A simplest weight we can use is to note
that there is or isn’t a connection. Let “1”
mean that there is a connection and “0”
mean that there isn’t.
 The arithmetic rules are:
 1+1=1 1*1=1
 1+0=1 1*0=0
 0+0=0 0*0=0
 A matrix defined like this is called
connection matrix.
 Connection Matrix
 The connection matrix is obtained by
replacing each entry with 1 if there is a link
and 0 if there isn’t.
 As usual we don’t write down 0 entries to
reduce the clutter.
a c 1 1
3

1 2
b 1
4 d 1
 Connection Matrix-
continued.,
 Each row of a matrix denotes the
outlinks of the node corresponding to
that row.
 Each column denotes the inlinks
correspoding to that node.
 A branch is a node with more than
one nonzero entry in its row.
 A junction is node with more than one
nonzero entry in its column.
 A self loop is an entry along the
diagonal.
 Cyclomatic Complexity
 The cyclomatic complexity obtained by
subtracting 1 from the total number of
entries in each row and ignoring rows with
no entries, we obtain the equivalent number
of decisions for each row. Adding these
values and then adding 1 to the sum yields
the graph’s
1 1 cyclomatic
2-1=1 complexity.

1+1=2 (cyclomatic
1 1-1=0
complexity)
1 1-1=0
 Relations
 A relation is a property that exists between
two objects of interest.
 For example,

“Node a is connected to node b” or aRb where
“R” means “is connected to”.

“a>=b” or aRb where “R” means greater than
or equal”.
 A graph consists of set of abstract objects
called nodes and a relation R between the
nodes.
 If aRb, which is to say that a has the
relation R to b, it is denoted by a link from
a to b.
 For some relations we can associate
Properties of Relations
 Transitive Relations
 A relation is transitive if aRb and bRc
implies aRc.
 Most relations used in testing are transitive.
 Examples of transitive relations include: is
connected to, is greater than or equal to, is
less than or equal to, is a relative of, is
faster than, is slower than, takes more time
than, is a subset of, includes, shadows, is
the boss of.
 Examples of intransitive relations include:
is acquainted with, is a friend of, is a
neighbor of, is lied to, has a du chain
between.
 Reflexive Relations
 A relation R is reflexive if, for every a,
aRa.
 A reflexive relation is equivalent to a
self loop at every node.
 Examples of reflexive relations
include: equals, is acquainted with, is
a relative of.
 Examples of irreflexive relations
include: not equals, is a friend of, is
on top of, is under.
 Symmetric Relations
 A relation R is symmetric if for every a and
b, aRb implies bRa.
 A symmetric relation mean that if there is a
link from a to b then there is also a link
from b to a.
 A graph whose relations are not symmetric
are called directed graph.
 A graph over a symmetric relation is called
an undirected graph.
 The matrix of an undirected graph is
symmetric (aij=aji) for all i,j)
 Antisymmetric Relations
 A relation R is antisymmetric if for
every a and b, if aRb and bRa, then
a=b, or they are the same elements.
 Examples of antisymmetric relations:
is greater than or equal to, is a subset
of, time.
 Examples of nonantisymmetric
relations: is connected to, can be
reached from, is greater than, is a
relative of, is a friend of
 Equivalence Relations
 An equivalence relation is a relation that satisfies
the reflexive, transitive, and symmetric properties.
 Equality is the most familiar example of an
equivalence relation.
 If a set of objects satisfy an equivalence relation,
we say that they form an equivalence class over
that relation.
 The importance of equivalence classes and
relations is that any member of the equivalence
class is, with respect to the relation, equivalent to
any other member of that class.
 The idea behind partition testing strategies such
as domain testing and path testing, is that we can
partition the input space into equivalence classes.
 Testing any member of the equivalence class is as
effective as testing them all.
 Partial Ordering Relations
 A partial ordering relation satisfies the
reflexive, transitive, and
antisymmetric properties.
 Partial ordered graphs have several
important properties: they are loop
free, there is at least one maximum
element, there is atleast one
minimum element.
 The Powers of a Matrix
 Each entry in the graph’s matrix expresses
a relation between the pair of nodes that
corresponds to that entry.
 Squaring the matrix yields a new matrix
that expresses the relation between each
pair of nodes via one intermediate node
under the assumption that the relation is
transitive.
 The square of the matrix represents all
path segments two links long.
 The third power represents all path
segments three links long.
 Matrix Powers and
Products
 Given a matrix whose entries are aij, the
square of that matrix is obtained by
replacing every entry with
n
aij=Σ aik akj
k=1

 more generally, given two matrices A and B

with entries aik and bkj, respectively, their
product is a new matrix C, whose entries
are cij, where:
n
Cij=Σ aik bkj
k=1
 Partitioning Algorithm
 Consider any graph over a transitive relation. The
graph may have loops.
 We would like to partition the graph by grouping
nodes in such a way that every loop is contained
within one group or another.
 Such a graph is partially ordered.
 There are many used for an algorithm that does
that:
 We might want to embed the loops within a
subroutine so as to have a resulting graph which is
loop free at the top level.
 Many graphs with loops are easy to analyze if you
know where to break the loops.
 While you and I can recognize loops, it’s much
harder to program a tool to do it unless you have a
solid algorithm on which to base the tool.
 Node Reduction Algorithm
(General)
 The matrix powers usually tell us more than
we want to know about most graphs.
 In the context of testing, we usually
interested in establishing a relation
between two nodes-typically the entry and
exit nodes.
 In a debugging context it is unlikely that we
would want to know the path expression
between every node and every other node.
 The advantage of matrix reduction method
is that it is more methodical than the
graphical method called as node by node
removal algorithm.
 Node Reduction Algorithm
(General)
1. Select a node for removal; replace the
node by equivalent links that bypass that
node and add those links to the links they
parallel.
2. Combine the parallel terms and simplify as
you can.
3. Observe loop terms and adjust the
outlinks of every node that had a self loop
to account for the effect of the loop.
4. The result is a matrix whose size has been
reduced by 1. continue until only the two
nodes of interest exist.