From: Robert Feldt <feldt@...>
Date: 2001-10-23T23:24:42+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:23052] [ANN] GraphR 0.1.0 (was Re: WebDot)


On Tue, 23 Oct 2001, Tobias Reif wrote:

> I'd like to use Ruby+WebDot to generate/serve SVG graphs.
> 
Well it looks like its your lucky day ;-). Really I'm not sure this does
what you want but you can generate really simple dot files and get the
graphs from them using GraphR (its simply the Graph-related files in
rockit extracted to a separate project; very small and unfinished!). See
Readme below.

Regards,

Robert



GraphR - Graph-related Ruby classes
===================================
Version:          0.1.0
Release date:     2001-10-23
Available from:   http://rockit.sf.net/subprojects/graphr
Author:           Robert Feldt
Email:            feldt@ce.chalmers.se

You can download the tarball from
http://rockit.sf.net/subprojects/graphr/graphr-0-1-0.tar.gz.

What is it?
-----------
Graph-related classes:
  * DirectedGraph     - fairly extensive directed graph class
  * DotGraphFormatter - output a graph in GraphViz's dot format

GraphR is very simple and might grow to support additional features of
dot.

GraphViz is an open source graph drawing software from AT&T 
(see http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/).

Why?
----
Graphs can be handy (;-)) and dot is a great visualization tool for
graphs.

Installation?
-------------
1. unpack tarball (if you haven't already)
2. Run tests: ruby -I./lib tests/runtests.rb       (OPTIONAL)
3. Install:   ruby install.rb

You can uninstall with: ruby install.rb --uninstall

Example of use?
---------------
require 'graph/graphviz_dot'

# We specialize a formatter that changes the shape of nodes
# based on their names.
f = DotGraphFormatter.new( proc{|n| 
           ["start", "stop"].include?(n.to_s) ? "circle" : "box"
         }
    )

# In this simple example we don't even have a "real" graph
# just Arrays with the nodes and the links. The optional third 
# element of a link is link information.
nodes = [:start, 1, 2, :stop]
links = [[:start, 1, "*"], [1, 1, "a"], [1, 2, "~a"], [2, :stop,"*"]]
dot_graph = f.format(nodes, links)

# And now output to files
dot_graph.write_to_file("g.dot")         # Generate postscript file
dot_graph.write_to_file("g.jpg", "jpeg") # Generate jpeg file

Requirements?
-------------
Ruby and dot.

Dot is only a part of GraphViz. Download at 
http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/download.html and make sure
dot can be run from Ruby by doing

system "dot"

ie. that dot is installed somewhere in the PATH.

NOTE THAT THIS IS AN ALPHA RELEASE SO THERE WILL LIKELY BE BUGS. And the
API will probably change in future versions.

Documentation?
--------------
None yet. For DirectedGraph you can take a look at 
tests/utest_directed_graph.rb.

License and legal issues?
-------------------------
GraphR is

Copyright (c) 2001 Robert Feldt, feldt@ce.chalmers.se.
All rights reserved.

and is distributed under GPL.

Do you have comments or questions?
----------------------------------
I'd appreciate if you drop me a note if you're successfully using 
GraphR. If there are some known users I'll be more motivated to 
packing up additions / new versions and post them to RAA.

Happy coding!

Robert Feldt, feldt@ce.chalmers.se