pydot
is a Python interface to Graphviz and its DOT language. You can use pydot
to create, read, edit, and visualize graphs.
networkx
, which can convert its graphs to pydot
.To see what Graphviz is capable of, check the Graphviz Gallery!
pyparsing
: used only for loading DOT files, installed automatically during pydot
installation.From PyPI:
pip install pydot
Development installation:
pip install -e .
No matter what you want to do with pydot
, you'll need some input to start with. Here are the common ways to get some data to work with.
Let's say you already have a file example.dot
(based on an example from Wikipedia):
graph my_graph { bgcolor="yellow"; a [label="Foo"]; b [shape=circle]; a -- b -- c [color=blue]; }
You can read the graph from the file in this way:
import pydot graphs = pydot.graph_from_dot_file("example.dot") graph = graphs[0]Parse a graph from an existing DOT string
Use this method if you already have a string describing a DOT graph:
import pydot dot_string = """graph my_graph { bgcolor="yellow"; a [label="Foo"]; b [shape=circle]; a -- b -- c [color=blue]; }""" graphs = pydot.graph_from_dot_data(dot_string) graph = graphs[0]Create a graph from scratch using pydot objects
This is where the cool stuff starts. Use this method if you want to build new graphs with Python code.
import pydot graph = pydot.Dot("my_graph", graph_type="graph", bgcolor="yellow") # Add nodes my_node = pydot.Node("a", label="Foo") graph.add_node(my_node) # Or, without using an intermediate variable: graph.add_node(pydot.Node("b", shape="circle")) # Add edges my_edge = pydot.Edge("a", "b", color="blue") graph.add_edge(my_edge) # Or, without using an intermediate variable: graph.add_edge(pydot.Edge("b", "c", color="blue"))
You can use these basic building blocks in your Python program to dynamically generate a graph. For example, start with a basic pydot.Dot
graph object, then loop through your data as you add nodes and edges. Use values from your data as labels to determine shapes, edges and so on. This allows you to easily create visualizations of thousands of related objects.
NetworkX has conversion methods for pydot graphs:
import networkx import pydot # See NetworkX documentation on how to build a NetworkX graph. graph = networkx.drawing.nx_pydot.to_pydot(my_networkx_graph)
You can now further manipulate your graph using pydot methods:
Add more nodes and edges:
graph.add_edge(pydot.Edge("b", "d", style="dotted"))
Edit attributes of graphs, nodes and edges:
graph.set_bgcolor("lightyellow") graph.get_node("b")[0].set_shape("box")
Here are three different output options:
If you just want to save the image to a file, use one of the write_*
methods:
graph.write_png("output.png")
If you need to further process the image output, the create_*
methods will get you a Python bytes
object:
output_graphviz_svg = graph.create_svg()
There are two different DOT strings you can retrieve:
The "raw" pydot DOT: This is generated the fastest and will usually still look quite similar to the DOT you put in. It is generated by pydot itself, without calling Graphviz.
# As a string: output_raw_dot = graph.to_string() # Or, save it as a DOT-file: graph.write_raw("output_raw.dot")
The Graphviz DOT: You can use it to check how Graphviz lays out the graph before it produces an image. It is generated by Graphviz.
# As a bytes literal: output_graphviz_dot = graph.create_dot() # Or, save it as a DOT-file: graph.write_dot("output_graphviz.dot")
NetworkX has a conversion method for pydot graphs:
my_networkx_graph = networkx.drawing.nx_pydot.from_pydot(graph)
For more help, see the docstrings of the various pydot objects and methods. For example, help(pydot)
, help(pydot.Graph)
and help(pydot.Dot.write)
.
More documentation contributions welcome.
pydot
uses Python's standard logging
module. To see the logs, assuming logging has not been configured already:
>>> import logging
>>> logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG)
>>> import pydot
DEBUG:pydot:pydot initializing
DEBUG:pydot:pydot <version>
DEBUG:pydot.core:pydot core module initializing
DEBUG:pydot.dot_parser:pydot dot_parser module initializing
Warning: When DEBUG
level logging is enabled, pydot
may log the data that it processes, such as graph contents or DOT strings. This can cause the log to become very large or contain sensitive information.
logging_tree
visualizer.pydot
does not add any handlers to its loggers, nor does it setup or modify your root logger. The pydot
loggers are created with the default level NOTSET
.pydot
registers the following loggers:
pydot
: Parent logger. Emits a few messages during startup.pydot.core
: Messages related to pydot objects, Graphviz execution and anything else not covered by the other loggers.pydot.dot_parser
: Messages related to the parsing of DOT strings.Distributed under the MIT license.
Current maintainer(s):
Past maintainers:
Original author: Ero Carrera <ero (dot) carrera (at) gmail (dot) com>
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