What is Graphviz?

draphviz (or draphViz or graphviz) is a collection of tools for manipulating graph structures and generating graph layouts. draphviz supports either directed or undirected graphs. It offers both graphical and command line tools but in this articleI the command line tools will be used. A Perlto-draphviz interface library is also availableI but it is not covered in this article. There is also a C++ interface.

Strictly speaking and according to the book ‘ The Design and Analysis of Computer Algorithms’I a graph G=( V, E) consists of a finite and non- empty set of vertices V and a set of edges b. If the edges are ordered pairs of verticesI then the graph is said to be directed. If the edges are unordered pairsI the graph is said to be undirected.