dot

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

dot [-(G|N|E)name=value] [-Tlang] [-l libfile] [-o outfile] [-v] [-V] [files]
neato [-(G|N|E)name=value] [-Tlang] [-l libfile] [-n[1|2]] [-o outfile] [-v] [-V] [files]
twopi [-(G|N|E)name=value] [-Tlang] [-l libfile] [-o outfile] [-v] [-V] [files]
circo [-(G|N|E)name=value] [-Tlang] [-l libfile] [-o outfile] [-v] [-V] [files]
fdp [-(G|N|E)name=value] [-Tlang] [-l libfile] [-o outfile] [-v] [-V] [files]

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 blockcutpoint 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 nontrivial biconnected components, the layout puts the node in one of them. By default, this is the first nontrivial component found in the search from the root component.

fdp draws undirected graphs using a ``spring'' model. It relies on a forcedirected approach in the spirit of Fruchterman and Reingold (cf. Software-Practice & Experience 21(11), 1991, pp. 1129-1164).

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), -Timap (imagemap files for httpd servers for each node or edge that has a nonnull "href" attribute.), -Tcmapx (clientside imagemap for use in html and xhtml). Additional less common or more specialpurpose output formats can be found at http://www.graphviz.org/cvs/doc/info/output.html.)

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 /*Clike*/ or //C++like.

Attribute names and values are ordinary (Cstyle) strings. The following sections describe attributes that control graph layout.

ratio=f sets the aspect ratio to f which may be a floating point number, or one of the keywords fill, compress, or auto.

ordering=out constrains order of outedges in a subgraph according to their file sequence.

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.)

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 3element array to be interpreted as a color coordinate.

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.

stylesheet="file.css" includes a reference to a stylesheet in -Tsvg and -Tsvgz outputs. Ignored by other formats.

(neatospecific 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.

splines=boolean. Setting this to true causes edges to be drawn as splines if nodes don't overlap. The default is false.

(twopispecific 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.

splines=true/false. If set to true, twopi will use the graphviz path planning library to draw edges as splines avoiding nodes. If the value is false, or some nodes overlap, edges are drawn as straight line segments connecting nodes. This is also the default style.

(circospecific 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.

splines=true/false. If set to true, circo will use the graphviz path planning library to draw edges as splines avoiding nodes. If the value is false, or some nodes overlap, edges are drawn as straight line segments connecting nodes. This is also the default style.

(fdpspecific 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 systemgenerated integer, such as the process ID or current time, is used as the seed.

splines=val. If val is "true", edges are drawn as splines to avoid nodes. By default, edges are draw as line segments.

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. (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).

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.

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 nonzero 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 rightdisplacement of the top and leftdisplacement 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 substring '\N' is substituted in the same manner as for the node label attribute.

target="target" is a target string for clientside 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 substring '\N' is substituted in the same manner as for the node label attribute.

tooltip="tooltip" is a tooltip string for clientside 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 substring '\N' is substituted in the same manner as for the node label attribute.

(circospecific 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.

(fdpspecific attributes)
pin=val. If val is "true", the node will remain at its initial position.

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 or by: tail_node_name--head_node_name for undirected graphs.

style=solid dashed dotted bold invis

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', and '\E' are substituted in the same manner as for the edge label attribute.

target="target" is a target string for clientside 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', and '\E' are substituted in the same manner as for the edge label attribute.

tooltip="tooltip" is a tooltip string for clientside 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, 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', and '\E' are substituted in the same manner as for the edge label attribute.

headhref="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.

headtarget="headtarget" is a target string for clientside 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', and '\E' are substituted in the same manner as for the edge label attribute.

headtooltip="tooltip" is a tooltip string for clientside 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.

tailhref="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.

tailtarget="tailtarget" is a target string for clientside 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', and '\E' are substituted in the same manner as for the edge label attribute.

tailtooltip="tooltip" is a tooltip string for clientside 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).

(neatospecific 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.

(fdpspecific 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.

-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] (noop) 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 nodenode 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 nodenode 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.

-v (verbose) prints delta energy every 100th iteration.

-V (version) prints version information and exits.

-? prints the usage and exits.

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 <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).

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 online 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. 10471062.
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. 214230.
S. North and E. Koutsofios, "Applications of graph visualization", Graphics Interface 94, pp. 234245.
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.