NAME
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
SYNOPSIS
dot [-(G|N|E)name=value] [-Tlang] [-llibfile] [-ooutfile] [-Klayout]
[-O] [-P] [-v] [-V] [files]
neato [-(G|N|E)name=value] [-Tlang] [-llibfile] [-n[1|2]] [-ooutfile]
[-Klayout] [-O] [-P] [-v] [-V] [files]
twopi [-(G|N|E)name=value] [-Tlang] [-llibfile] [-ooutfile] [-Klayout]
[-O] [-P] [-v] [-V] [files]
circo [-(G|N|E)name=value] [-Tlang] [-llibfile] [-ooutfile] [-Klayout]
[-O] [-P] [-v] [-V] [files]
fdp [-(G|N|E)name=value] [-Tlang] [-llibfile] [-ooutfile] [-Klayout]
[-O] [-P] [-v] [-V] [files]
sfdp [-(G|N|E)name=value] [-Tlang] [-llibfile] [-ooutfile] [-Klayout]
[-O] [-P] [-v] [-V] [files]
DESCRIPTION
dot draws directed graphs. It works well on DAGs and other graphs that
can be drawn as hierarchies. It reads attributed graph files and
writes drawings. By default, the output format dot is the input file
with layout coordinates appended.
neato draws undirected graphs using ‘‘spring’’ models (see Kamada and
Kawai, Information Processing Letters 31:1, April 1989). Input files
must be formatted in the dot attributed graph language. By default,
the output of neato is the input graph with layout coordinates
appended.
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.
OUTPUT FORMATS
Dot uses an extensible plugin mechanism for its output renderers, so to
see what output formats your installation of dot supports you can use
‘‘dot -Txxx’’ (where xxx is an unlikely format) and check the warning
message. Also, The plugin mechanism supports multiple implementations
of the output formats. To see what variants are available, use, for
example: ‘‘dot -Tpng:’’ and to force a particular variant, use, for
example: ‘‘dot -Tpng:gd’’
Traditionally, dot supports the following: -Tps (PostScript), -Tsvg
-Tsvgz (Structured Vector Graphics), -Tfig (XFIG graphics), -Tmif
(FrameMaker graphics), -Thpgl (HP pen plotters), and -Tpcl (Laserjet
printers), -Tpng -Tgif (bitmap graphics), -Tdia (GTK+ based diagrams),
-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/cvs/doc/info/output.html.)
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.
GRAPH FILE LANGUAGE
Here is a synopsis of the graph file language, traditionally using the
extension .dot, for graphs:
[strict] (graph|digraph) name { statementlist }
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] { statementlist }
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.
Comments may be /*C‐like*/ or //C++‐like.
Attribute names and values are ordinary (C‐style) strings. The
following sections describe attributes that control graph layout.
GRAPH ATTRIBUTES
size="x,y" sets bounding box of drawing in inches.
page="x,y" sets the PostScript pagination unit.
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).
nodesep=f sets the minimum separation between nodes.
ranksep=f sets the minimum separation between ranks.
ordering=out constrains order of out‐edges in a subgraph according to
their file sequence.
rankdir=LR|RL|BT requests a left‐to‐right, right‐to‐left, or
bottom‐to‐top, drawing.
pagedir=[TBLR][TBLR] sets the major and minor order of pagination.
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.
rotate=90 sets landscape mode. (orientation=land is backward
compatible but obsolete.)
center=n a non‐zero value centers the drawing on the page.
nslimit=f or mclimit=f adjusts the bound on the number of network
simplex or mincross iterations by the given ratio. For example,
mclimit=2.0 runs twice as long.
layers="id:id:id:id" is a sequence of layer identifiers for overlay
diagrams. The PostScript array variable layercolorseq sets the
assignment of colors to layers. The least index is 1 and each element
must be a 3‐element array to be interpreted as a color coordinate.
color=colorvalue sets foreground color (bgcolor for background).
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".)
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 may
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.
(neato‐specific attributes)
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.
overlap=mode. This specifies what twopi should do if any nodes overlap.
If mode is "false", the program uses Voronoi diagrams 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.
(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.
NODE ATTRIBUTES
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=record polygon epsf builtin_polygon
builtin_polygon is one of: plaintext ellipse oval circle egg triangle
box diamond trapezium parallelogram house hexagon octagon note tab
box3d component. (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.
label=text where text may include escaped newlines \n, \l, or \r for
center, left, and right justified lines. The string ’\N’ value will be
replaced by the node name. The string ’\G’ value will be replaced by
the graph name. Record labels may contain recursive box lists
delimited by { | }. Port identifiers in labels are set off by angle
brackets < >. In the graph file, use colon (such as, node0:port28).
fontsize=n sets the label type size to n points.
fontname=name sets the label font family name.
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.
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 cyan or burlywood, or a "#rrggbb" (red,
green, blue, 2 hex characters each) value.
style=filled solid dashed dotted bold invis or any Postscript code.
layer=id or id:id or "all" sets the node’s active layers. The empty
string means no layers (invisible).
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.
href="url" sets the url for the node in imagemap, PostScript and SVG
files. 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.
URL="url" ("URL" is a synonym for "href".)
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="tooltip" 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.
(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.
(fdp‐specific attributes)
pin=val. If val is "true", the node will remain at its initial
position.
EDGE ATTRIBUTES
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).
weight=n where n is the integer cost of the edge. Values greater than
1 tend to shorten the edge. Weight 0 flat edges are ignored for
ordering nodes.
label=text where text may include escaped newlines \n, \l, or \r for
centered, left, or right justified lines. If the substring ’\T’ is
found in a label it will be replaced by the tail_node name. If the
substring ’\H’ is found in a label it will be replaced by the head_node
name. If the substring ’\E’ value is found in a label it will be
replaced by: tail_node_name->head_node_name If the substring ’\G’ is
found in a label it will be replaced by the graph name. or by:
tail_node_name--head_node_name for undirected graphs.
fontsize=n sets the label type size to n points.
fontname=name sets the label font family name.
fontcolor=colorvalue sets the label text color.
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.
href="url" sets the url for the node 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.
URL="url" ("URL" is a synonym for "href".)
target="target" 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="tooltip" 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.
arrowsize (norm_length=10,norm_width=5,
inv_length=6,inv_width=7,dot_radius=2)
headlabel,taillabel=string for port labels.
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 port_label_distance set distance; also labelangle (in
degrees CCW)
decorate draws line from edge to label.
samehead,sametail aim edges having the same value to the same port,
using the average landing point.
constraint=false causes an edge to be ignored for rank assignment.
layer=id or id:id or "all" sets the edge’s active layers. The empty
string means no layers (invisible).
(neato‐specific attributes)
w=f sets the weight (spring constant) of an edge to the given floating
point value. The default is 1.0; greater values make the edge tend
more toward its optimal length.
len=f sets the optimal length of an edge. The default is 1.0.
(fdp‐specific attributes)
weight=f sets the weight of an edge to the given floating point value.
The default is 1.0; greater values make the edge tend more toward its
optimal length.
COMMAND LINE OPTIONS
-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.
-V (version) prints version information and exits.
-? prints the usage and exits.
EXAMPLES
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];
}
CAVEATS
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.
AUTHORS
Stephen C. North <north@research.att.com>
Emden R. Gansner <erg@research.att.com>
John C. Ellson <ellson@research.att.com>
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
freetype-devel@lists.lrz-muenchen.de).
SEE ALSO
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. Koutsofios and S. C. North, "Drawing Graphs with dot," Available on
research.att.com in dist/drawdag/dotguide.ps.Z.
S. C. North, "NEATO User’s Manual". Available on research.att.com in
dist/drawdag/neatodoc.ps.Z.
23 August 2004 DOT(1)