DOT(1) (02 December 1996) DOT(1)
NAME
dot - preprocessor for drawing directed graphs
SYNOPSIS
dot [-Gname=value] [-Nname=value] [-Ename=value] [-Tlang]
[-l libfile] [-o outfile] [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. To generate PostScript, use the -Tps option.
Other choices are -Tmif (FrameMaker graphics), -Thpgl (HP
pen plotters), and -Tpcl (Laserjet printers), -Tgif (pixel
graphics), -Timap, and -Tismap (imagemap files for httpd
servers that mark out rectangles for each node that has a
non-null URL attribute.), -Tcmap, (client-side imagemap for
use in html).
Here is a synopsis of the graph file language.
digraph name { statement-list } is the top level graph.
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 -> n1 -> ... -> 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. Sub-
graphs 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.
DOT(1) (02 December 1996) DOT(1)
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.
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 requests a left-to-right drawing.
pagedir=[TBLR][TBLR] sets the major and minor order of pagi-
nation.
rank=same (or min or max) in a subgraph constrains the rank
assignment of its nodes. If a subgraph's name has the pre-
fix 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 layercol-
orseq 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 back-
ground).
URL="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. stylesheet="file.css"
includes a reference to a stylesheet in -Tsvg and -Tsvgz
outputs. Ignored by other formats.
DOT(1) (02 December 1996) DOT(1)
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 circle egg tri-
angle box diamond trapezium parallelogram house hexagon
octagon. (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. 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 charac-
ters 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
DOT(1) (02 December 1996) DOT(1)
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 supercedes 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 ori-
entation). Floating point values between -1 and +1 are sug-
gested. 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.
URL="url" sets the url for the node in imagemap, PostScript
and SVG files. The substring '\N' is substituted in the
same manner as for the node label attribute.
tooltip="tooltip" is a tooltip string for client-side
imagemaps 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 tool-
tips thus permitting denser graphs. The substring '\N' is
substituted in the same manner as for the node label
attribute.
EDGE ATTRIBUTES
minlen=n where n is an integer factor that applies to the
edge length (ranks for normal edges, or minimum node separa-
tion 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
DOT(1) (02 December 1996) DOT(1)
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 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.
dir=forward back both none controls arrow direction.
tailclip,headclip=false disables endpoint shape clipping.
URL="url" sets the url for the node in imagemap, PostScript
and SVG files. The substrings '\T', '\H', and '\E' are sub-
stituted in the same manner as for the edge label attribute.
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', and '\E' are substituted in the same
manner as for the edge label attribute.
arrowhead,arrowtail=none, normal, inv, dot, odot, invdot,
invodot, tee, empty, invempty, open, halfopen, diamond, odi-
amond, 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', and '\E' are substituted
in the same manner as for the edge label attribute.
headURL="url" sets the url for the head port in imagemap,
PostScript and SVG files. The substrings '\T', '\H', and
'\E' are substituted in the same manner as for the edge
label attribute.
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.
DOT(1) (02 December 1996) DOT(1)
tailURL="url" sets the url for the tail port in imagemap,
PostScript and SVG files. The substrings '\T', '\H', and
'\E' are substituted in the same manner as for the edge
label attribute.
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', and '\E' are substituted in the same
manner as for the edge label attribute.
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 edgess active layers.
The empty string means no layers (invisible).
OPTIONS
-G sets a default graph attribute. -N and -E set default
attributes for nodes and edges. Some examples: -Gsize="7,8"
or -Nshape=box or -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.
EXAMPLE
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}
}
BUGS
DOT(1) (02 December 1996) DOT(1)
Edge splines can overlap unintentionally.
Flat edge labels are slightly broken. Intercluster edge
labels are totally broken.
SEE ALSO
dotty(1)
neato(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 visual-
ization", 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.
The GIF driver is a publically available library from the
Quest Center at Cold Spring Harbor Labs (courtesy Tom Bou-
tell, boutell@netcom.com). The Truetype font renderer for
the GIF driver was written by the Freetype Project (David
Turner, Robert Wilhelm, and Werner Lemberg) (who can be con-
tacted at freetype-devel@lists.lrz-muenchen.de).