This package facilitates the creation of graph descriptions in the DOT language of the Graphviz graph drawing software from Python.

Create a graph object, assemble the graph by adding nodes and edges, and retrieve its DOT source code string. Save the source code to a file and render it with the Graphviz installation of your system.

Use the view option/method to directly inspect the resulting (PDF, PNG, SVG, etc.) file with its default application. Graphs can also be rendered and displayed within IPython notebooks.

• GitHub: http://github.com/xflr6/graphviz
• PyPI: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/graphviz
• Documentation: http://graphviz.readthedocs.org
• Changelog: http://graphviz.readthedocs.org/en/latest/changelog.html
• Issue Tracker: http://github.com/xflr6/graphviz/issues
• Download: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/graphviz#downloads

This package runs under Python 2.6, 2.7, and 3.3+, use pip to install:

$ pip install graphviz

To render the generated DOT source code, you also need to install Graphviz (download page).

Make sure that the dot executable is on your systems' path.

Create a graph object:

>>> from graphviz import Digraph

>>> dot = Digraph(comment='The Round Table')

>>> dot  #doctest: +ELLIPSIS
<graphviz.dot.Digraph object at 0x...>

Add nodes and edges:

>>> dot.node('A', 'King Arthur')
>>> dot.node('B', 'Sir Bedevere the Wise')
>>> dot.node('L', 'Sir Lancelot the Brave')

>>> dot.edges(['AB', 'AL'])
>>> dot.edge('B', 'L', constraint='false')

Check the generated source code:

>>> print(dot.source)  # doctest: +NORMALIZE_WHITESPACE
// The Round Table
digraph {
    A [label="King Arthur"]
    B [label="Sir Bedevere the Wise"]
    L [label="Sir Lancelot the Brave"]
        A -> B
        A -> L
        B -> L [constraint=false]
}

Save and render the source code, optionally view the result:

>>> dot.render('test-output/round-table.gv', view=True)
'test-output/round-table.gv.pdf'

• pygraphviz – full-blown interface wrapping the Graphviz C library with SWIG
• graphviz-python – official Python bindings (documentation)
• pydot – stable pure-Python approach, requires pyparsing

This package is distributed under the MIT license.