On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 07:38:00AM +0900, Simon Chiang wrote:
> I'm using a data structure that I'm sure has been implemented and
> studied to death several times over... but I don't know it's name.
> The structure is simple: any given node may have one or more previous
> nodes.  Nodes can be re-used, so you get structures like this:
> 
>   o one
>   |
>   |-o two (fork of 1)
>   | |
>   `---o three (fork of 2)
>     | |
>     | | o four
>     | | |
>     | `-`-o five (merge of 3,4)
>     |     |
>     `-----`-o six (merge of 2,5)
> 
> The whole thing is ordered in the sense that n-1 logically occurs
> before n.  Kinda reminiscent of git, but I'm using this as a kind of
> audit of how values progress though an analysis.
> 
> Any ideas?  Thanks.

Unless there's something more complicated that I am missing, this is a
directed, acyclic graph, usually abbreviated as a DAG.

--Greg