Patent ID: 8484197

Claim:
A search apparatus comprising: a graph memory that stores data of a graph having nodes, each node having an attribute selected from among a plurality of attributes, and a link which represents a relationship between the nodes; a root node specification receiving unit that receives a root node which is specified from among the nodes in the graph; and a search unit that begins with the root node as a target node, searches for an adjacent node which is connected to the target node via a link and, if at least one of the target node and the adjacent node has at least one attribute of the plurality of attributes as a search condition, the node is incorporated into a concatenation path, wherein the search unit iteratively performs a process of searching for an adjacent node which satisfies the search condition using a preceding adjacent node as the target node for a subsequent iteration to obtain a concatenation path, the preceding adjacent node being a node satisfying the search condition and having been determined in a previous search, and the search unit outputs the obtained concatenation path.