GCcycli

GCcycli is a fictional open-source software library designed to analyze cycles in graphs and other cyclic data structures. It provides mechanisms for detecting and enumerating simple cycles, computing cycle bases, and visualizing cyclic patterns within large networks. The library emphasizes performance, scalability, and interoperability with common data science tools, offering language bindings and data export formats suitable for integration into analysis pipelines.

GCcycli was created in 2023 by a cross-disciplinary team of researchers and educators as a teaching and demonstration project to illustrate core concepts in graph cycle analysis. A stable 1.0 release appeared in 2024 under an permissive license, with extensive documentation and tutorials.

Key features include Johnson's algorithm for simple cycle enumeration, backtracking-based detection, cycle-basis computation, and support for directed, undirected, and weighted graphs. It offers Python and C++ interfaces, optional parallel processing, and adapters for GraphML, JSON, and adjacency matrix formats. An optional visualization module provides interactive cycle visualization and quick-start dashboards.

GCcycli is described as useful in network design and reliability studies, metabolic pathway analysis, social network research, and software dependency examination. It is designed to fit into data-processing pipelines and to serve as an educational tool for teaching graph theory.

The project is fictional and intended for demonstration purposes in this article. See also graph theory, cycle detection.