Patent ID: 6839749

Claim:
A method of representing a network in a canonical form, said network having nodes and arcs, each node having an identifier, and each arc having a source node and a destination node, said method comprising the steps of: (a) ordering a list of said node identifiers; (b) creating a node string from said ordered list of node identifiers; (c) determining one or both of a grouped outgoing arcs string and a grouped incoming arcs string; wherein, for a said grouped outgoing arcs string, said determining step comprises the steps of: (i) determining a list of destination node identifiers associated with each node identifier; and (ii) codifying said lists of destination node identifiers into a string; and, for a said grouped incoming arcs string, said determining step comprises the steps of: (i) determining a list of source node identifiers associated with each node identifier; and (ii) codifying said lists of source node identifiers into a string; and (d) combining said node string with one or both of said grouped outgoing arcs string and said grouped incoming arcs string to form said canonical form representation of said network.