Help with possibly noobish question

Question

Hello,
I need to make some complex graph structures such that this format will not do
1: 2 ->4
2: 4 ->2
I have several additions to each node to take care of that is the main problem.
each node has aarity which I could hold as a separate array to be accessed for each object instance of a node
Part 1:
The problem is that i have to know which node is connected to which arity element and then I have to search for the free elements and label their indexes with characters. I think I can solve this
Part 2:
The second problem is maybe a little worse as I have to translate certain groups graphs to something like this and then connect them to any graph as needed. Will i need to make a separate object for this purpose??
| ..................| n input wires connected |
|???????????????????????????????????|
| Wires maped to edges from graph |
|___________________________________|
| ..................| n output wires wires connected |
Part 3:
To compound this I have to find a way to implement a menu selector to choose random graphs or parts of graphs for a Genetic Algorithm. Selection is not the problem here its is mapping the structures into a chromosone which is causing me the problem.
Part 4:
Each connection has the graphs triggers different application specific rules that cause the graph to reduce or change connections.
Any help on strategies for these problems would greatly be appreciated
kind regards
Prashant

Answer 1

Hello all and thanks for the replies positive or not. Sorry if I offended you bbritta. I guess its not such and easy question after all.
Well its not due tomorrow and I am doing some research into a wierd topic so you guys are along the right lines. The topic I am researching is non-determinstic interaction nets. I don't know too many people doing this. Interaction Nets invented by a guy named Yves Lafont and you can google this and the topic I am researching.
All the code written thus far exists in C and is very hard to interpret as it uses a Lex and Yacc parser to implement the creation of tokens and syntax rules of the Interaction Nets programming language.
Basically its a high level visual graph programming language however it can also be used on low level based on interpretation. Thus the need for graph data structures. Essentially I have to modify this programming language for non-determinism and demonstrate this in a Genetic Algorithm. The latter would be no problem if I could get the data structure sorted. People familiar with Lamda calculus, Linear Logic and Process Calculus might have seen this in some research papers.
However I have not had a very good theoretical background so finding the data structures to map the complexity of the graphs is a little problematic. I will outline my idea and what I have done a little clearer below.
So far I have broken the prob into smaller steps as suggested by someone, I hope the pseudo code helps a little more.
class Symbol
convertASCIItoINt( char value) : return int
getChar() : return char
checkAvailability() : return boolean;
//each Symbol is assigned to a free port and is traditionally input.
//several instances of this obj are used to
class Port  implements Symbol
  initialisePort( num);
  checkFreePorts( ) : return boolean;
  setPortSymbol (port [num])
  private ports [ num ];
  setEndPortAsSpecial( ports [ num ]) // each node has a special port called principal port
// each node has a set of port and each port can have a label as a string
class Node
setNodeSymbol()
getnodeSymbol()
public Port node_obj [ port_num ];
setSpecialSymbol( string)
  //destructor to delete node connected to
  //duplicator to create a copy of cell value
  //constructor create a copy of the cell
getSpecialSymbol() : return string symbol;
checkSpecialSymbol(node_obj [ port_num ]): return string symbol;
//so far as a typical graph goes i think its acceptable to connect the nodes in an vector with
//a list at each element although this is not shown below.
class Net
  connecNodes( node_obj [ port_num], node_obj [ port_num] )
  checkDeadlock(): return boolean; //check for cycles
  public Node net_obj [ node_num ];
  checkConnected( node_obj [ port_num], node_obj [ port_num] ): return boolean;
//this is where the execution engine will be placed
class InteractionRules
ruleTrigger( )
  Node n = new n
  n.checkSpecialSymbol()
  // its here where things get complicated with the data structure as according to the rules I have to delete
  // add or copy a value of a particular node in a Net
  determineReduction()
    //if (ports [ num ] = num )
    // a reduction occurs according to the rule in the method above ruleTrigger();
   //at this point the relevant nodes will be removed and new nodes will be added according to the rules
storeCopyofOriginalNet()
   //needed to rollback if rules are infeasable or deadlock occurs.
}I desperately still need help to complete the data structure I have also considered manipulating the complex associations between the sets as multimaps and maps
Sorry if I am not clear I am trying my best to explain something I have had little background and almost no help in as I am creating the special rules as I go along such as keeping an copy of a net / graph before modifying it in the Genetic Algorithm.
Kind Regards and Best Wishes
Prashant