The more elements a graph contains, the more complicated the placement of nodes. Instead of working on your project into the night, why not pass the task on to the computer – equipped with Graphviz [1] – to do the perfect job? Graphviz is based on an open format, called DOT, which uses simple text files.

Most distributions already have Graphviz in their repositories. With Ubuntu, you install the software by using the apt-get install graphviz command.

Basics

Listing 1 shows the basis for a simple diagram. The first line defines the diagram by name (G ). All components enclosed in curly brackets are related to this diagram – in this case, the connections for a tree diagram. End each line with a semicolon.

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