Syntax Definition with Graphs

Syntax definition of visual languages is required for a precise definition of a visual language; it is a requirement for the automatic creation of tools that process diagrams of the language. This paper describes a lecture together with an exercise which have been given by the author at the SegraVis Summer-School at Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany, in May 2004. The paper presents in a tutorial like way the DiaGen approach of defining visual language syntax with hypergraphs and hypergraph grammars.