DOT(1) General Commands Manual DOT(1)
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
patchwork - filter for squarified tree maps
osage - filter for array-based layouts
SYNOPSIS
dot [options] [files]
neato [options] [files]
twopi [options] [files]
circo [options] [files]
fdp [options] [files]
sfdp [options] [files]
patchwork [options] [files]
osage [options] [files]
DESCRIPTION
These are a collection of programs for drawing graphs. There is actu-
ally only one main program; the specific layout algorithms are imple-
mented 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 algo-
rithm. Edge crossings within a circle are minimized by placing as many
edges on the circle's perimeter as possible. In particular, if the com-
ponent 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.
OUTPUT FORMATS
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 mecha-
nism 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 for-
mat. 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 sup-
ported by plugins in the local installation of graphviz.
GRAPH FILE LANGUAGE
Here is a synopsis of the graph file language, normally using the exten-
sion .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 undi-
rected 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 follow-
ing 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.
GRAPH, NODE AND EDGE ATTRIBUTES
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.
Attributes Common to Nodes, Edges, Clusters and Graphs
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/at-
trs#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 < >.
Graph Attributes
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 over-
lap. If mode is false, the program uses the Prism algorithm to adjust
the nodes to eliminate overlaps. If mode is scale, the layout is uni-
formly 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 or-
thogonal 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 gradi-
ent 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 ver-
tices.
start=val. Requests random initial placement and seeds the random num-
ber 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 lay-
out. 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 se-
quence 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 speci-
fied 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-gen-
erated 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=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, periph-
eries, sides, orientation, distortion and skew.) epsf uses the node's
shapefile attribute as the path name of an external EPSF file to be au-
tomatically loaded for the node shape.
See http://www.graphviz.org/content/node-shapes for a complete descrip-
tion 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 tar-
get attribute is included in the output. The substrings '\N' and '\G'
are substituted in the same manner as for the node label attribute. Ad-
ditionally 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 la-
bels to still have tooltips thus permitting denser graphs. The sub-
strings '\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. sym-
metric 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 regu-
lar are not affected (i.e. they cannot be made asymmetric).
peripheries=n sets the number of periphery lines drawn around the poly-
gon. 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 el-
lipse. 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 at-
tribute. 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-dis-
placement 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.
Edge Attributes
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 empha-
sis 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, ef-
fective when edges have a URL. If the target string is empty, the de-
fault, then no target attribute is included in the output. The sub-
strings '\T', '\H', '\E' and '\G' are substituted in the same manner as
for the edge label attribute. Additionally the substring '\L' is sub-
stituted 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. Addi-
tionally 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 substi-
tuted 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 at-
tribute. Additionally the substring '\L' is substituted with the edge
label string.
headtooltip="tooltip" is a tooltip string for client-side imagemaps ef-
fective 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. Ad-
ditionally 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 at-
tribute. Additionally the substring '\L' is substituted with the edge
label string.
tailtooltip="tooltip" is a tooltip string for client-side imagemaps ef-
fective 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, us-
ing 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 de-
form 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.
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 cus-
tom 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 per-
forms 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 appro-
priate 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 at-
tribute. neato computes an edge layout for any edge that does not have
a pos attribute. As usual, edge layout is guided by the splines at-
tribute.
-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.
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 to-
tally 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@graphviz.org>
John C. Ellson <ellson@research.att.com>
Yifan Hu <yifanhu@yahoo.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. 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.
12 January 2015 DOT(1)
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