dot - filter for drawing directed graphs
neato - filter for drawing undirected graphs
twopi - filter for radial layouts of graphs
circo - filter for circular layout of graphs
fdp - filter for drawing undirected graphs
sfdp - filter for drawing large undirected graphs
patchwork - filter for squarified tree maps
osage - filter for array-based layouts
dot [
options] [files]
neato [
options] [files]
twopi [
options] [files]
circo [
options] [files]
fdp [
options] [files]
sfdp [
options] [files]
patchwork [
options] [files]
osage [
options] [files]
These are a collection of programs for drawing graphs. There is actually only
one main program; the specific layout algorithms are implemented as plugins.
Thus, they largely share all of the same command-line options.
dot draws directed graphs. It works well on directed acyclic graphs and
other graphs that can be drawn as hierarchies or have a natural ``flow.''
neato draws undirected graphs using a ``spring'' model and reducing the
related energy (see Kamada and Kawai, Information Processing Letters 31:1,
April 1989).
twopi draws graphs using a radial layout (see G. Wills, Symposium on
Graph Drawing GD'97, September, 1997). Basically, one node is chosen as the
center and put at the origin. The remaining nodes are placed on a sequence of
concentric circles centered about the origin, each a fixed radial distance
from the previous circle. All nodes distance 1 from the center are placed on
the first circle; all nodes distance 1 from a node on the first circle are
placed on the second circle; and so forth.
circo draws graphs using a circular layout (see Six and Tollis, GD '99
and ALENEX '99, and Kaufmann and Wiese, GD '02.) The tool identifies
biconnected components and draws the nodes of the component on a circle. The
block‐cutpoint tree is then laid out using a recursive radial
algorithm. Edge crossings within a circle are minimized by placing as many
edges on the circle's perimeter as possible. In particular, if the component
is outerplanar, the component will have a planar layout. If a node belongs to
multiple non‐trivial biconnected components, the layout puts the node
in one of them. By default, this is the first non‐trivial component
found in the search from the root component.
fdp draws undirected graphs using a ``spring'' model. It relies on a
force‐directed approach in the spirit of Fruchterman and Reingold (cf.
Software‐Practice & Experience 21(11), 1991, pp. 1129‐1164).
sfdp also draws undirected graphs using the ``spring'' model described
above, but it uses a multi-scale approach to produce layouts of large graphs
in a reasonably short time.
patchwork draws the graph as a squarified treemap (see M. Bruls et al.,
``Squarified treemaps'', Proc. Joint Eurographics and IEEE TCVG Symp. on
Visualization, 2000, pp. 33-42). The clusters of the graph are used to specify
the tree.
osage draws the graph using its cluster structure. For a given cluster,
each of its subclusters is laid out internally. Then the subclusters, plus any
remaining nodes, are repositioned based on the cluster's
pack and
packmode attributes.
Graphviz uses an extensible plugin mechanism for its output renderers, so to see
what output formats your installation of dot supports you can use ``dot -T:''
and check the warning message. Also, The plugin mechanism supports multiple
implementations of the output formats, allowing variations in the renderers
and formatters. To see what variants are available for a particular output
format, use, for example: ``dot -Tpng:'' and to force a particular variant,
use, for example: ``dot -Tpng:gd''
Traditionally, Graphviz supports the following:
-Tdot (Dot format containing layout information),
-Txdot (Dot format containing complete layout information),
-Tps (PostScript),
-Tpdf (PDF),
-Tsvg -Tsvgz (Structured Vector Graphics),
-Tfig (XFIG graphics),
-Tpng (png bitmap graphics),
-Tgif (gif bitmap graphics),
-Tjpg -Tjpeg (jpeg bitmap graphics),
-Tjson (xdot information encoded in JSON),
-Timap (imagemap files for httpd servers for each node or edge that has a
non‐null
href attribute.),
-Tcmapx (client‐side imagemap for use in html and xhtml).
Additional less common or more special‐purpose output formats can be
found at //
http://www.graphviz.org/content/output-formats.
Alternative plugins providing support for a given output format can be found
from the error message resulting from appending a ':' to the format. e.g.
-Tpng: The first plugin listed is always the default.
The
-P switch can be used to produce a graph of all output variants
supported by plugins in the local installation of graphviz.
Here is a synopsis of the graph file language, normally using the extension
.gv, for graphs:
[
strict] (
graph|
digraph)
name {
statement‐list }
is the top‐level graph. If the graph is
strict, then multiple
edges are not allowed between the same pairs of nodes. If it is a directed
graph, indicated by
digraph, then the
edgeop must be
"->". If it is an undirected
graph then the
edgeop
must be "--".
Statements may be:
name=val;
node [name=val];
edge [name=val];
Set default graph, node, or edge attribute
name to
val. Any
subgraph, node, or edge appearing after this inherits the new default
attributes.
n0 [name0=val0,name1=val1,...];
Creates node
n0 (if it does not already exist) and sets its attributes
according to the optional list.
n0 edgeop n1
edgeop ... edgeop nn
[ name0=val0,name1=val1,...];
Creates edges between nodes
n0,
n1, ...,
nn and sets their
attributes according to the optional list. Creates nodes as necessary.
[
subgraph name]
{ statement‐list }
Creates a subgraph. Subgraphs may be used in place of
n0, ...,
nn
in the above statements to create edges. [
subgraph name] is
optional; if missing, the subgraph is assigned an internal name.
The language accepts both C‐style comments /*C...*/ or //...
Attribute names and values are ordinary (C‐style) strings. The following
sections describe attributes that control graph layout.
A more complete description of the language can be found at
http://www.graphviz.org/content/dot-language.
Graphviz uses the
name=
value attributes, attached to graphs,
subgraphs, nodes and edges, to tailor the layout and rendering. We list the
more prominent attributes below. The complete list is available at
http://www.graphviz.org/content/attrs.
href=url the default url for image map files; in PostScript files,
the base URL for all relative URLs, as recognized by Acrobat Distiller 3.0 and
up.
URL=url (``URL'' is a synonym for ``href.'')
fontcolor=colorvalue sets the label text color.
A
colorvalue may be "
h,s,v" (hue, saturation,
brightness) floating point numbers between 0 and 1, or an X11 color name such
as
white, black, red, green, blue, yellow, magenta, or
cyan, or
a "
#rrggbb" (red, green, blue, 2 hex characters each) value.
See http://www.graphviz.org/content/attrs#kcolor and
http://www.graphviz.org/content/color-names for further details.
fontsize=n sets the label type size to
n points.
fontname=name sets the label font family name.
label=text where
text may include escaped newlines \n, \l,
or \r for center, left, and right justified lines. The string '\G' value will
be replaced by the graph name. For node labels, the string '\N' value will be
replaced by the node name. For edges, if the substring '\T' is found in a
label, it will be replaced by the name of the tail node; if the substring '\H'
is found in a label, it will be replaced by the name of the head node; if the
substring '\E' value is found in a label it will be replaced by:
tail_node_name->
head_node_name or by:
tail_node_name--
head_node_name for undirected graphs.
Graphviz also supports special HTML-like labels for constructing complex node
content. A full‐description of these is given at
http://www.graphviz.org/content/node-shapes#html.
If a node has
shape=record, the label may contain recursive box lists
delimited by { | }. Port identifiers in labels are set off by angle brackets
< >.
size="x,y" specifies the maximum bounding box of
drawing in inches.
ratio=f sets the aspect ratio to
f which may be a floating
point number, or one of the keywords
fill,
compress, or
auto.
layout=engine indicates the preferred layout engine (
dot,
neato,
fdp, etc.) overriding the default from the basename of
the command or the -K commandline option.
margin=f sets the page margin (included in the page size).
ordering=out constrains order of out‐edges in a subgraph according
to their file sequence.
rotate=90 sets landscape mode. (
orientation=land is backward
compatible but obsolete.)
center=n a non‐zero value centers the drawing on the page.
color=colorvalue sets foreground color (
bgcolor for
background).
overlap=mode. This specifies what algorithm should do if any nodes
overlap. If mode is
false, the program uses the Prism algorithm to
adjust the nodes to eliminate overlaps. If mode is
scale, the layout is
uniformly scaled up, preserving node sizes, until nodes no longer overlap. The
latter technique removes overlaps while preserving symmetry and structure,
while the former removes overlaps more compactly but destroys symmetries. If
mode is
true (the default), no repositioning is done. Since the
dot algorithm always produces a layout with no node overlaps, this
attribute is only useful with other layouts.
stylesheet="file.css" includes a reference to a
stylesheet in -Tsvg and -Tsvgz outputs. Ignored by other formats.
splines If set to
true, edges are drawn as splines. If set to
polyline, edges are drawn as polylines. If set to
ortho, edges
are drawn as orthogonal polylines. In all of these cases, the nodes must not
overlap. If
splines=false or
splines=line, edges
are drawn as line segments. The default is
true for dot, and
false for all other layouts.
(dot‐specific attributes)
nodesep=f sets the minimum separation between nodes.
ranksep=f sets the minimum separation between ranks.
rankdir=LR|RL|BT requests a left‐to‐right,
right‐to‐left, or bottom‐to‐top, drawing.
rank=same (or
min or
max) in a subgraph constrains the rank
assignment of its nodes. If a subgraph's name has the prefix
cluster,
its nodes are drawn in a distinct rectangle of the layout. Clusters may be
nested.
(neato‐specific attributes)
mode=val. Algorithm for minimizing energy in the layout. By
default,
neato uses stress majorization. If
mode=KK, it uses a
version of gradient descent.
model=val. The
neato model computes the desired distances
between all pairs of vertices. By default, it uses the length of the shortest
path. If
model is set to
circuit, a circuit-resistance model is
used. If
model is set to
subset, it uses a model whereby the
edge length is the number of nodes that are neighbors of exactly one of the
edge's vertices.
start=val. Requests random initial placement and seeds the random
number generator. If
val is not an integer, the process ID or current
time is used as the seed.
epsilon=n. Sets the cutoff for the solver. The default is 0.1.
(twopi‐specific attributes)
root=ctr. This specifies the node to be used as the center of the
layout. If not specified,
twopi will randomly pick one of the nodes
that are furthest from a leaf node, where a leaf node is a node of degree 1.
If no leaf nodes exists, an arbitrary node is picked as center.
ranksep=val. Specifies the radial distance in inches between the
sequence of rings. The default is 0.75.
(circo‐specific attributes)
root=nodename. Specifies the name of a node occurring in the root
block. If the graph is disconnected, the
root node attribute can be
used to specify additional root blocks.
mindist=value. Sets the minimum separation between all nodes. If
not specified then
circo uses a default value of 1.0.
(fdp‐specific attributes)
K=val. Sets the default ideal node separation in the layout.
maxiter=val. Sets the maximum number of iterations used to layout
the graph.
start=val. Adjusts the random initial placement of nodes with no
specified position. If
val is is an integer, it is used as the seed for
the random number generator. If
val is not an integer, a random
system‐generated integer, such as the process ID or current time, is
used as the seed.
height=d or
width=d sets minimum height or width.
Adding
fixedsize=true forces these to be the actual size (text labels
are ignored).
shape=builtin_polygon record epsf
builtin_polygon can be such values as
plaintext, ellipse, oval,
circle, egg, triangle, box, diamond, trapezium, parallelogram, house,
hexagon, octagon, note, tab, box3d, or component,, among others.
(Polygons are defined or modified by the following node attributes:
regular,
peripheries,
sides,
orientation,
distortion and
skew.)
epsf uses the node's
shapefile attribute as the path name of an external EPSF file to be
automatically loaded for the node shape.
See
http://www.graphviz.org/content/node-shapes for a complete description of
node shapes.
color=colorvalue sets the outline color, and the default fill
color if style=filled and
fillcolor is not specified.
fillcolor=colorvalue sets the fill color when style=filled. If not
specified, the fillcolor when style=filled defaults to be the same as the
outline color.
style=filled solid dashed dotted bold invis
xlabel="text" specifies a label that will be place near,
but outside, of a node. The normal
label string is placed within the
node shape.
target="target" is a target string for
client‐side imagemaps and SVG, effective when nodes have a URL. The
target string is used to determine which window of the browser is used for the
URL. Setting it to "_graphviz" will open a new window if it doesn't
already exist, or reuse it if it does. If the target string is empty, the
default, then no target attribute is included in the output. The substrings
'\N' and '\G' are substituted in the same manner as for the node label
attribute. Additionally the substring '\L' is substituted with the node label
string.
tooltip="text" is a tooltip string for
client‐side imagemaps and SVG, effective when nodes have a URL. The
tooltip string defaults to be the same as the label string, but this attribute
permits nodes without labels to still have tooltips thus permitting denser
graphs. The substrings '\N' and '\G' are substituted in the same manner as for
the node label attribute. Additionally the substring '\L' is substituted with
the node label string.
The following attributes apply only to polygon shape nodes:
regular=n if
n is non‐zero then the polygon is made
regular, i.e. symmetric about the x and y axis, otherwise the polygon takes on
the aspect ratio of the label.
builtin_polygons that are not already
regular are made regular by this attribute.
builtin_polygons that are
already regular are not affected (i.e. they cannot be made asymmetric).
peripheries=n sets the number of periphery lines drawn around the
polygon. This value supersedes the number of periphery lines of
builtin_polygons.
sides=n sets the number of sides to the polygon.
n<3
results in an ellipse. This attribute is ignored by
builtin_polygons.
orientation=f sets the orientation of the first apex of the
polygon counterclockwise from the vertical, in degrees.
f may be a
floating point number. The orientation of labels is not affected by this
attribute. This attribute is added to the initial orientation of
builtin_polygons.
distortion=f sets the amount of broadening of the top and
narrowing of the bottom of the polygon (relative to its orientation). Floating
point values between -1 and +1 are suggested. This attribute is ignored by
builtin_polygons.
skew=f sets the amount of right‐displacement of the top and
left‐displacement of the bottom of the polygon (relative to its
orientation). Floating point values between -1 and +1 are suggested. This
attribute is ignored by
builtin_polygons.
(circo‐specific attributes)
root=true/false. This specifies that the block containing the
given node be treated as the root of the spanning tree in the layout.
(neato‐ and fdp‐specific attributes)
pin=val. If
val is
true, the node will remain at its
initial position.
weight=val where
val is the cost of the edge. For
dot, weights must be non-negative integers. Values greater than 1 tend
to shorten the edge; weight 0 flat edges are ignored for ordering nodes. In
twopi, a weight of 0 will cause the edge to be ignored in constructing
the underlying spanning tree. For
neato and
fdp, a heavier
weight will put more emphasis on the algorithm achieving an edge length closer
to that specified by the edge's
len attribute.
style=solid dashed dotted bold invis
color=colorvalue sets the line color for edges.
color=colorvaluelist a ':' separated list of
colorvalue
creates parallel edges, one edge for each color.
dir=forward back both none controls arrow direction.
tailclip,headclip=false disables endpoint shape clipping.
target="text" is a target string for client‐side
imagemaps and SVG, effective when edges have a URL. If the target string is
empty, the default, then no target attribute is included in the output. The
substrings '\T', '\H', '\E' and '\G' are substituted in the same manner as for
the edge label attribute. Additionally the substring '\L' is substituted with
the edge label string.
tooltip="text" is a tooltip string for
client‐side imagemaps effective when edges have a URL. The tooltip
string defaults to be the same as the edge label string. The substrings '\T',
'\H', '\E' and '\G' are substituted in the same manner as for the edge label
attribute. Additionally the substring '\L' is substituted with the edge label
string.
arrowhead,arrowtail=none, normal, inv, dot, odot, invdot, invodot,
tee, empty, invempty, open, halfopen, diamond, odiamond, box, obox,
crow. Specifies the shape of the glyph occurring where the edge touches
the head or tail node, respectively. Note that this only specifies the shape.
The
dir attribute determines whether or not the glyph is drawn.
arrowsize=val specifies a multiplicative scale factor for the size
of the arrowhead. inv_length=6,inv_width=7,dot_radius=2)
headlabel,taillabel=text for labels appearing near the head and
tail nodes of an edge.
labelfontcolor,
labelfontname,
labelfontsize for head and tail labels. The substrings '\T', '\H', '\E'
and '\G' are substituted in the same manner as for the edge label attribute.
Additionally the substring '\L' is substituted with the edge label string.
headhref="url" sets the url for the head port in
imagemap, PostScript and SVG files. The substrings '\T', '\H', '\E' and '\G'
are substituted in the same manner as for the edge label attribute.
Additionally the substring '\L' is substituted with the edge label string.
headURL="url" (
headURL is a synonym for
headhref.)
headtarget="headtarget" is a target string for
client‐side imagemaps and SVG, effective when edge heads have a URL.
The headtarget string is used to determine which window of the browser is used
for the URL. If the headtarget string is empty, the default, then headtarget
defaults to the same value as target for the edge. The substrings '\T', '\H',
'\E' and '\G' are substituted in the same manner as for the edge label
attribute. Additionally the substring '\L' is substituted with the edge label
string.
headtooltip="tooltip" is a tooltip string for
client‐side imagemaps effective when head ports have a URL. The tooltip
string defaults to be the same as the headlabel string. The substrings '\T',
'\H', and '\E' are substituted in the same manner as for the edge label
attribute. Additionally the substring '\L' is substituted with the edge label
string.
tailhref="url" sets the url for the tail port in
imagemap, PostScript and SVG files. The substrings '\T', '\H', '\E' and '\G'
are substituted in the same manner as for the edge label attribute.
Additionally the substring '\L' is substituted with the edge label string.
tailURL="url" (
tailURL is a synonym for
tailhref.)
tailtarget="tailtarget" is a target string for
client‐side imagemaps and SVG, effective when edge tails have a URL.
The tailtarget string is used to determine which window of the browser is used
for the URL. If the tailtarget string is empty, the default, then tailtarget
defaults to the same value as target for the edge. The substrings '\T', '\H',
'\E' and '\G' are substituted in the same manner as for the edge label
attribute. Additionally the substring '\L' is substituted with the edge label
string.
tailtooltip="tooltip" is a tooltip string for
client‐side imagemaps effective when tail ports have a URL. The tooltip
string defaults to be the same as the taillabel string. The substrings '\T',
'\H', '\E' and '\G' are substituted in the same manner as for the edge label
attribute. Additionally the substring '\L' is substituted with the edge label
string.
labeldistance and
labelangle (in degrees CCW) specify the
placement of head and tail labels.
decorate draws line from edge to label.
samehead,sametail aim edges having the same value to the same port, using
the average landing point.
(dot‐specific attributes)
constraint=false causes an edge to be ignored for rank assignment.
minlen=n where
n is an integer factor that applies to the
edge length (ranks for normal edges, or minimum node separation for flat
edges).
xlabel="text" Edge labels in
dot are treated as
special types of nodes, with space allocated for them during node layout. This
can sometimes deform the edge routing. If an
xlabel is used instead,
the label is placed after all nodes and edges have been positioned. In turn,
this may mean that there is some overlap among the labels.
(neato and fdp‐specific attributes)
len=f sets the optimal length of an edge. The default is 1.0.
-G sets a default graph attribute.
-N sets a default node attribute.
-E sets a default edge attribute. Example:
-Gsize="7,8"
-Nshape=box -Efontsize=8
-lfile loads custom PostScript library files. Usually these define
custom shapes or styles. If
-l is given by itself, the standard library
is omitted.
-Tlang sets the output language as described above.
-n[
1|
2] (no‐op) If set, neato assumes nodes have
already been positioned and all nodes have a pos attribute giving the
positions. It then performs an optional adjustment to remove node‐node
overlap, depending on the value of the overlap attribute, computes the edge
layouts, depending on the value of the
splines attribute, and emits the
graph in the appropriate format. If num is supplied, the following actions
occur:
num = 1
Equivalent to -n.
num > 1
Use node positions as specified, with no adjustment to remove node‐node
overlaps, and use any edge layouts already specified by the pos attribute.
neato computes an edge layout for any edge that does not have a
pos
attribute. As usual, edge layout is guided by the
splines attribute.
-Klayout override the default layout engine implied by the command
name.
-O automatically generate output filenames based on the input filename
and the -T format.
-P generate a graph of the currently available plugins.
-v (verbose) prints various information useful for debugging.
-c configure plugins.
-m memory test (observe no growth with top, kill when done).
-qlevel set level of message suppression. The default is 1.
-sfscale scale input by
fscale, the default is 72.
-y invert y coordinate in output.
-V (version) prints version information and exits.
-? prints the usage and exits.
A complete description of the available command‐line options can be found
at
https://www.graphviz.org/doc/info/command.html.
digraph test123 {
a -> b -> c;
a -> {x y};
b [shape=box];
c [label="hello\nworld",color=blue,fontsize=24,
fontname="Palatino-Italic",fontcolor=red,style=filled];
a -> z [label="hi", weight=100];
x -> z [label="multi-line\nlabel"];
edge [style=dashed,color=red];
b -> x;
{rank=same; b x}
}
graph test123 {
a -- b -- c;
a -- {x y};
x -- c [w=10.0];
x -- y [w=5.0,len=3];
}
Edge splines can overlap unintentionally.
Flat edge labels are slightly broken. Intercluster edge labels are totally
broken.
Because unconstrained optimization is employed, node boxes can possibly overlap
or touch unrelated edges. All existing spring embedders seem to have this
limitation.
Apparently reasonable attempts to pin nodes or adjust edge lengths and weights
can cause instability.
Stephen C. North <
[email protected]>
Emden R. Gansner <
[email protected]>
John C. Ellson <
[email protected]>
Yifan Hu <
[email protected]>
The bitmap driver (PNG, GIF etc) is by Thomas Boutell,
<
http://www.boutell.com/gd>
The Truetype font renderer is from the Freetype Project (David Turner, Robert
Wilhelm, and Werner Lemberg) (who can be contacted at
[email protected]).
This man page contains only a small amount of the information related to the
Graphviz layout programs. The most complete information can be found at
http://www.graphviz.org/Documentation.php, especially in the on‐line
reference pages. Most of these documents are also available in the
doc
and
doc/info subtrees in the source and binary distributions.
dotty(1),
tcldot(n),
xcolors(1),
libgraph(3).
E. R. Gansner, S. C. North, K. P. Vo, "DAG ‐ A Program to Draw
Directed Graphs", Software ‐ Practice and Experience
17(1), 1988,
pp. 1047‐1062.
E. R. Gansner, E. Koutsofios, S. C. North, K. P. Vo, "A Technique for
Drawing Directed Graphs," IEEE Trans. on Soft. Eng.
19(3), 1993, pp.
214‐230.
S. North and E. Koutsofios, "Applications of graph visualization",
Graphics Interface 94, pp. 234‐245.
E. R. Gansner and E. Koutsofios and S. C. North, "Drawing Graphs with
dot," Available at
http://www.graphviz.org/pdf/dotguide.pdf.
S. C. North, "NEATO User's Manual". Available
http://www.graphviz.org/pdf/neatoguide.pdf.
E. R. Gansner and Y. Hu, "Efficient, Proximity-Preserving Node Overlap
Removal", J. Graph Algorithms Appl.,
14(1) pp. 53‐74, 2010.