1GRAPH-EASY(1) User Contributed Perl Documentation GRAPH-EASY(1)
2
6 graph-easy - render/convert graphs in/from various formats
7
9 Convert between graph formats and layout/render graphs:
10 graph-easy [options] [inputfile [outputfile]]
12 echo "[ Bonn ] - car -> [ Berlin ]" | graph-easy
14 graph-easy --input=graph.dot --as_ascii
15 graph-easy --html --output=mygraph.html graph.txt
16 graph-easy graph.txt graph.svg
17 graph-easy graph.txt --as_dot | dot -Tpng -o graph.png
18 graph-easy graph.txt --png
19 graph-easy graph.vcg --dot
20 graph-easy graph.dot --gdl
21 graph-easy graph.dot --graphml
22
24 Here are the most important options, more are listed in the full
25 documentation:
26 --help Print the full documentation, not just this short overview.
28 --input Specify the input file name. Example:
30 graph-easy --input=input.txt
32 The format will be auto-detected, override it with --from.
34 --output Specify the output file name. Example:
36 graph-easy --output=output.txt input.txt
38 --as Specify the output format. Example:
40 graph-easy --as=ascii input.txt
42 Valid formats are:
44 ascii ASCII art rendering
46 boxart Unicode Boxart rendering
47 html HTML
48 svg Scalable Vector Graphics
49 graphviz the DOT language
50 dot alias for "graphviz"
51 txt Graph::Easy text
52 vcg VCG (Visualizing Compiler Graphs - a subset of GDL) text
53 gdl GDL (Graph Description Language) text
54 graphml GraphML
55 In addition, the following formats are understood and piped
57 through the program specified with the --renderer option
58 (default: dot):
59 bmp Windows bitmap
61 gif GIF
62 hpgl HP-GL/2 vector graphic
63 jpg JPEG
64 pcl PCL printer language
65 pdf PDF
66 png PNG
67 ps Postscript
68 ps2 Postscript with PDF notations (see graphviz documentation)
69 tga Targa bitmap
70 tif TIFF bitmap
71 The default format will be determined by the output filename
73 extension, and is "ascii", if the output filename was not
74 set.
75 You can also use ONE argument of the form "--as_ascii" or
77 "--ascii".
78 --from Specify the input format. Valid formats are:
80 graphviz the DOT language
82 txt Graph::Easy text
83 vcg VCG text
84 gdl GDL (Graph Description Language) text
85 If not specified, the input format is auto-detected.
87 You can also use ONE argument of the form "--from_dot", etc.
89 --renderer
91 The external program (default: "dot") used to render the
92 output formats like "png", "jpg" etc. Some choices are
93 "neato", "twopi", "fdp" or "circo".
94 --parse Input will only be parsed, without any output generation.
96 Useful in combination with "--debug=1" or "--stats". Example:
97 graph-easy input.txt --parse --debug=1
99 --stats Write various statistics about the input graph to STDERR.
101 Best used in combination with "--parse":
102 graph-easy input.txt --parse --stats
104 --timeout Set the timeout in seconds for the Graph::Easy layouter that
106 generates ASCII, HTML, SVG or boxart output. If the layout
107 does not finish in this time, it will be aborted. Example:
108 graph-easy input.txt --timeout=500
110 Conversion to DOT, VCG/GDL, GraphML or plain text ignores the
112 timeout.
113 The default is 240 seconds (4 minutes).
115 --verbose Write info regarding the conversion process to STDERR.
117
119 "graph-easy" reads a description of a graph (a connected network of
120 nodes and edges, not a pie chart :-) and then converts this to the
121 desired output format.
122 By default, the input will be read from STDIN, and the output will go
124 to STDOUT. The input is expected to be encoded in UTF-8, the output
125 will also be UTF-8.
126 It understands the following formats as input:
128 Graph::Easy http://bloodgate.com/perl/graph/manual/
130 DOT http://www.graphviz.org/
131 VCG http://rw4.cs.uni-sb.de/~sander/html/gsvcg1.html
132 GDL http://www.aisee.com/
133 The formats are automatically detected, regardless of the input file
135 name, but you can also explicitly declare your input to be in one
136 specific format.
137 The output can be a dump of the graph in one of the following formats:
139 Graph::Easy http://bloodgate.com/perl/graph/manual/
141 DOT http://www.graphviz.org/
142 VCG http://rw4.cs.uni-sb.de/~sander/html/gsvcg1.html
143 GDL http://www.aisee.com/
144 GraphML http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/
145 In addition, "Graph::Easy" can also create layouts of graphs in one of
147 the following output formats:
148 HTML SVG ASCII BOXART
150 Note that for SVG output, you need to install the module
152 Graph::Easy::As_svg first.
153 As a shortcut, you can also specify the output format as 'png', this
155 will cause "graph-easy" to pipe the input in graphviz format to the
156 "dot" program to create a PNG file in one step. The following two
157 examples are equivalent:
158 graph-easy graph.txt --dot | dot -Tpng -o graph.png
160 graph-easy graph.txt --png
161
163 "graph-easy" supports a few more arguments in addition to the ones from
164 above:
165 --version Write version info and exit.
167 --debug=N Set the debug level (1..3). Warning, this will generate huge
169 amounts of hard to understand output on STDERR. Example:
170 graph-easy input.txt --output=test.html --debug=1
172 --png, --dot, --vcg, --gdl, --txt, --ascii, --boxart, --html, --svg
174 Given exactly one of these options, produces the desired
175 output format.
176
178 ASCII output
179 echo "[ Bonn ] -- car --> [ Berlin ], [ Ulm ]" | graph-easy
180 +--------+ car +-----+
182 | Bonn | -----> | Ulm |
183 +--------+ +-----+
184 |
185 | car
186 v
187 +--------+
188 | Berlin |
189 +--------+
190 Graphviz example output
192 echo "[ Bonn ] -- car --> [ Berlin ], [ Ulm ]" | graph-easy --dot
193 digraph GRAPH_0 {
194 edge [ arrowhead=open ];
196 graph [ rankdir=LR ];
197 node [
198 fontsize=11,
199 fillcolor=white,
200 style=filled,
201 shape=box ];
202 Bonn -> Ulm [ label=car ]
204 Bonn -> Berlin [ label=car ]
205 }
207 VCG example output
209 echo "[ Bonn ] -- car --> [ Berlin ], [ Ulm ]" | graph-easy --vcg
210 graph: {
211 title: "Untitled graph"
212 node: { title: "Berlin" }
214 node: { title: "Bonn" }
215 node: { title: "Ulm" }
216 edge: { label: "car" sourcename: "Bonn" targetname: "Ulm" }
218 edge: { label: "car" sourcename: "Bonn" targetname: "Berlin" }
219 }
221 GDL example output
223 GDL (Graph Description Language) is a superset of VCG, and thus the
224 output will look almost the same as VCG:
225 echo "[ Bonn ] -- car --> [ Berlin ], [ Ulm ]" | graph-easy --gdl
227 graph: {
228 title: "Untitled graph"
229 node: { title: "Berlin" }
231 node: { title: "Bonn" }
232 node: { title: "Ulm" }
233 edge: { label: "car" source: "Bonn" target: "Ulm" }
235 edge: { label: "car" source: "Bonn" target: "Berlin" }
236 }
238 GraphML example output
240 GraphML is XML:
241 echo "[ Bonn ] -- car --> [ Berlin ], [ Ulm ]" | graph-easy --graphml
243 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
244 <graphml xmlns="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns"
245 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
246 xsi:schemaLocation="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns
247 http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns/1.0/graphml.xsd">
248 <!-- Created by Graph::Easy v0.58 at Mon Aug 20 00:01:25 2007 -->
250 <key id="d0" for="edge" attr.name="label" attr.type="string"/>
252 <graph id="G" edgedefault="directed">
254 <node id="Berlin">
255 </node>
256 <node id="Bonn">
257 </node>
258 <node id="Ulm">
259 </node>
260 <edge source="Bonn" target="Berlin">
261 <data key="d0">car</data>
262 </edge>
263 <edge source="Bonn" target="Ulm">
264 <data key="d0">car</data>
265 </edge>
266 </graph>
267 <graphml>
268
270 Please note that it is impossible to convert 100% from one format to
271 another format since every graph language out there has features that
272 are unique to only this language.
273 In addition, the conversion process always converts the input first
275 into an Graph::Easy graph, and then to the desired output format.
276 This means that only features and attributes that are actually valid in
278 Graph::Easy are supported yet. Work in making Graph::Easy an universal
279 format supporting as much as possible is still in progress.
280 Attributes that are not yet supported natively by Graph::Easy are
282 converted to custom attributes with a prefixed "x-format-", f.i.
283 "x-dot-". Upon output to the same format, these are converted back, but
284 conversion to a different format will lose these attributes.
285 For a list of what problems still remain, please see the TODO file in
287 the "Graph::Easy" distribution on CPAN:
288 <http://search.cpan.org/~tels/Graph-Easy/>
290 If you notice anything wrong, or miss attributes, please file a bug
292 report on
293 <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Graph-Easy>
295 so we can fix it and include the missing things into Graph::Easy!
297
299 This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
300 under the terms of the GPL.
301 See the LICENSE file of Graph::Easy for a copy of the GPL.
303 This product includes color specifications and designs developed by
305 Cynthia Brewer (<http://colorbrewer.org/>). See the LICENSE file for
306 the full license text that applies to these color schemes.
307
309 Copyright (C) 2004 - 2008 by Tels <http://bloodgate.com>
310
312 More information can be found in the online manual of Graph::Easy:
313 <http://bloodgate.com/perl/graph/manual/>
315 See also: Graph::Easy, Graph::Easy::Manual
317perl v5.38.0 2023-07-20 GRAPH-EASY(1)