Let's document: graphviz

[calpa]

Graphviz is open source graph visualization software.

Graph visualization is a way of representing structural information as diagrams of abstract graphs and networks.

[sbrl]

Thanks for requesting this page, @calpa! Do you want to have a go yourself?

Pages are best created by people who understand the command they are about.

If you do, take a quick read of CONTRIBUTING.md, which guides you through the process of creating a new page here. Then, just simply send a pull request to this repository - and if you need any assistance, just ask :-)

[calpa]

@sbrl I will do it this week.

[mebeim]

Hi, @calpa, when you say "Graphviz" what do you mean exactly? Graphviz is a set of useful tools, not a standalone command. Care to specify?

[calpa]

@mebeim I am talking about this

[mebeim]

@calpa ok, but again as I said, that's not a specific command. That's a collection of commands which all support a certain set of options, so one cannot write a page for that, it does not fit in the scope of tldr pages. You could, however, write pages for specific graphviz commands.

[marchersimon]

A complete list of binaries in the graphviz package:

• [x] acyclic
• [x] bcomps
• [x] ccomps
• [x] circo → #6284
• [ ] cluster
• [ ] diffimg
• [ ] dijkstra
• [x] dot → #1578
• [ ] dot2gxl
• [ ] dot_builtins
• [ ] dotty
• [x] edgepaint
• [x] fdp → #6284
• [ ] gc
• [x] gml2gv → #6286
• [x] graphml2gv → #6286
• [x] gv2gml → #6286
• [x] gv2gxl → #6286
• [x] gvcolor
• [ ] gvedit
• [ ] gvgen
• [ ] gvmap
• [ ] gvmap.sh
• [x] gvpack
• [ ] gvpr
• [ ] gxl2dot
• [x] gxl2gv → #6286
• [ ] lefty
• [ ] lneato
• [x] mm2gv → #6286
• [x] neato → #6284
• [x] nop
• [x] osage → #6284
• [x] patchwork → #6284
• [ ] prune
• [x] sccmap
• [x] sfdp → #6284
• [x] tred
• [x] twopi → #6284
• [x] unflatten
• [ ] vimdot

[daniel-birket]

Hello @marchersimon and all. I'd like to tackle this one as graphviz is a favorite tool of mine. I note that dot already has an entry. Please know that dot is only one of a set of alternate layout engines: dot, neato, circo, twopi, fdp, sfdp, osage and patchwork that have nearly the same parameters and flags. I'd like to tackle these as a set of entries, starting with a review of the existing dot entry (which seems too short). Is there any reason that I can't touch up dot (if required), get those changes (if any) accepted, then make a batch pull-request "graphviz : add pages" to create entries for the other seven commands that share dot's syntax? Will your work flow crash if there are multiple commands per pull-request?

There are also another score or more commands in the package that I hope to handle as well, but separate from this set.

[marchersimon]

Amazing, thanks! We're pretty flexible regarding our workflow. But maybe I'd call the PR Add graphviz layout engine pages or something like this.

[daniel-birket]

@marchersimon , @CleanMachine1, @calpa, @mebeim , I think that these first 14 graphviz commands are ready and stable after this last tweak requested by @navarroaxel. Please review #6270 (dot.md only), #6284 (dot.md + all layouts) and #6286 (all converters). Thank you.

[marchersimon]

@CleanMachine1 not all commands were covered by those two PRs. I updated the list above

[daniel-birket]

I'm working on the graphviz filters: acyclic, bcomps, comps, edgepaint, gvcolor, gvpack, mingle, nop, sccmap, tred, & unflatten. These commands accept a file in graphviz format, transform the graph in some way, and output another file in graphviz format. The filters often accept the text, not graphic, output of one of the layout engines like dot as their input. (The layout engines produce graphviz format by default if no graphical format like -T png is specified.)