Hello (and greetings to the forum as it’s my first post),
I started to tinker last week with Graphviz and I find the language quite clear (though the documentation is not always straightforward).
In a graph I’d like to create a “Caption” subgraph, as partially shown below.
[dot verbose=true]
digraph test {
label="Caption"
{
rank="same"
B,C,D
}
A → B[label=“A\ndepends\non B”]
B → C[label=“Unordered\nconstraint”, dir=“both”, arrowhead=“onormal”, arrowtail=“onormal”, style=“dashed”]
A → C → D[color=“red”]
D → A[label=“Def. loop”, color=“red”]
}
[/dot]
For clarity, is it possible to move the A → B label outwards (i.e. to the left) ?
Cheers !
Yann
Welcome.
Graphviz is indeed complex. Here are my go to’s for documentation:
Here is a proposed fix to your label issue: change that one label to an xlabel (xlabel | Graphviz). It seems to satisfy your request.
digraph test {
label="Caption"
{
rank="same"
B,C,D
}
A -> B[xlabel="A\ndepends\non B"] // changed label to xlabel
B -> C[label="Unordered\nconstraint", dir="both", arrowhead="onormal", arrowtail="onormal", style="dashed"]
A -> C -> D[color="red"]
D -> A[label="Def. loop", color="red"]
}
Giving:
Thanks for your help and the documents!
I missed xlabel, this is indeed useful. However, it becomes messier if I use it with concentrate=true:
[dot, verbose=true]
digraph test {
label=“Caption”
concentrate=true
{
rank=“same”
B,C,D
}
A → B[xlabel=“A\ndepends\non B”] // changed label to xlabel
B → C[label=“Unordered\nconstraint”, dir=“both”, arrowhead=“onormal”, arrowtail=“onormal”, style=“dashed”]
A → C → D[color=“red”]
D → A[label=“Def. loop”, color=“red”]
B -> D[label="Requirement", style="bold", color="forestgreen"]
}
[/dot]
Same question applies to the example above. Is it possible to move the “Requirement” upwards or tweak the position manually?
I tried to fiddle with xlp and related attributes but it doesn’t seem to help.
Ok, I found a workaround that gives a satisfactory result, by manually specifying some ports:
[dot verbose=true]
digraph test {
label="Caption"
concentrate=true
{
rank="same"
B,C,D
}
// Added explicit ports on some nodes
A:n -> B[label="A\ndepends\non B"]
B -> C[label="Unordered\nconstraint", dir="both", arrowhead="onormal", arrowtail="onormal", style="dashed"]
A:nw -> C[color="red"]
C:n -> D:n[color="red"]
D -> A[label="Def. loop", color="red"]
B -> D[label="Requirement", style="bold", color="forestgreen"]
}
[\dot]
(btw I don’t know why the graph isn’t rendered, hence the multiple tries/edits/post deletions, sorry)
Ok, for whatever reason, the graph is not rendering the same way it was when I posted the message…
First, the nodes on 1st line were ordered : C B D (I was happily surprised by this graphviz proposal)
Thus the green arrow was a straight one, and the A->B label was less ambiguous as the D->A label is already on the far right.
But now the nodes are ordered B C D again, which is quite messier with specified ports… Did I miss something ?
For now I corrected it by working on the C → B connexion, which changes the rank and improves the restult. But I don’t think I changed it before, which is strange.
Here’s the current code:
[dot, verbose=true]
digraph test {
label=“Caption”
concentrate=true
{
rank=“same”
B,C,D
}
A:n → B[label=“A\ndepends\non B”]
C → B[label=“Unordered\nconstraint”, dir=“both”, arrowhead=“onormal”, arrowtail=“onormal”, style=“dashed”]
A:nw → C[color=“red”]
C:n → D:n[color=“red”]
D → A[label=“Def. loop”, color=“red”]
B → D[label=“Requirement”, style=“bold”, color=“forestgreen”]
}
[/dot]
Also in my memory the C → D arrow I was getting in my previous result was curvier, avoiding the C → B label. Is there a way to correct this ?
Thanks !
Yann
PS : I think I know now why my previous graph is not rendered on the forum, possibly due to the comment. But I can’t edit anymore.
Here is a (maybe) fix to make the edge “curvier”. But note that dot produces unsatisfactory results for many variations on this theme.
digraph test {
label="Caption"
concentrate=true
{
rank="same"
B,C,D
}
A:n -> B[label="A\ndepends\non B"]
C -> B[label="Unordered\nconstraint", dir="both", arrowhead="onormal", arrowtail="onormal", style="dashed"]
A:nw -> C[color="red"]
C:ne -> D:nw [color=red label=" " ] // trying to make the visible version "curvier"
C:n-> D:n [color="invis" ]
D -> A[label="Def. loop", color="red"]
B -> D[label="Requirement", style="bold", color="forestgreen"]
}
Giving:
Here are three forum entries about edges & edge labels. With luck, they should help you place your edges and labels more to your liking.
