Specification of a directed graph

This is a fairly advanced topic related to directed graphs. I am looking into NOSQL technology for a project. In particular, using graph databases. It's a perfect fit in supporting the rich model I want to save relationships for and the problem domain is a graph itself (vertices and edges). Now obviously this made me look at Neo4j and other vendors in this space. Now I believe they def have solved or closed the gap with persisting data in a graph data structure way...which is perfect.

However my requirement goes further where there is a need to understand a specification of a directed graph to create an actual instance of a 'directed graph', suc开发者_StackOverflowh that particular rules and constraints are adhered to when actually creating the graph. The graph database doesn't concern itself with this which is correct and wouldnt want it too (happy that it's agnostic of this). The problem is this leaves it a little open ended as what ensures that the graph complies with your graph rules (ie that certain nodes can have certain relationships or even have relationships to other nodes). What should I be using that will allow me to specify the specification/metadata of the directed graph such that when creating an instance of it at runtime it adheres correctly to it's specification.

Any help or suggestions on what is available or what is the standard way to approach this would be appreciated

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I think you should take a look at Spring Data Graph, http://www.springsource.org/spring-data/neo4j that is as close as you get in having a powerful mapping layer that can project rules etc, much like JPA or Hibernate.

WDYT?

/peter