UNFLATTEN

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: 21 January 2001
Page Index

NAME

unflatten - adjust directed graphs to improve layout aspect ratio

SYNOPSIS

unflatten [-f?] [-llen] [-clen ] [ -o outfile ] [ files ]

DESCRIPTION

unflatten is a preprocessor to dot that is used to improve the aspect ratio of graphs having many leaves or disconnected nodes. The usual layout for such a graph is generally very wide or tall. unflatten inserts invisible edges or adjusts the minlen on edges to improve layout compaction.

OPTIONS

The following options are supported:

-l len: The minimum length of leaf edges is staggered between 1 and len (a small integer).
-f: Enables the staggering of the -l option to fanout nodes whose indegree and outdegree are both 1. This helps with structures such as a -> {w x y z} -> b. This option only works if the -l flag is set.
-c len: Form disconnected nodes into chains of up to len nodes.
-o outfile: causes the output to be written to the specified file; by default, output is written to stdout.
-?: Prints the usage and exits.

OPERANDS

The following operand is supported:

files: Names of files containing 1 or more graphs in dot format. If no files operand is specified, the standard input will be used.

AUTHORS

Stephen C. North <north@research.att.com>
Emden R. Gansner <erg@research.att.com>