A comparative analysis of some effective algorithms widely used in ana
lysis, computation and comparison of chain molecules is presented. A n
otion of a stream in an oriented hypergraph is introduced, which gener
alizes a notion of a path in a graph. All considered algorithms lookin
g over exponential sets of structures in polynomial time can be descri
bed as variants of a general algorithm of analysis of paths in graphs
and of streams in oriented hypergraphs.