Prevent overlapping records using graphviz and neato

Chris Williams picture Chris Williams · Jun 24, 2009 · Viewed 15.5k times · Source

I am building a dot file to represent computer hardware and the physical connections to a network switch and displays. I have it looking ok when processed by the dot program but I think I really want it processed by neato to create a more "free form" picture as it starts to grom. Right now when I run my large file with neato, everything is overlapping.

I am trying to figure out the syntax on where to define the overlap attribute. Below is a subset of my dot file.

graph g {  
    node [shape=record,height=.1];  
    PC8[label="{{<GigE1>GigE1|<GigE2>GigE2}|{<name>PC8}|{<dvi1>dvi1|<dvi2>dvi2|<dvi3>dvi3|<dvi4>dvi4}}"];  
    PC9[label="{{<GigE1>GigE1|<GigE2>GigE2}|{<name>PC9}|{<dvi1>dvi1|<dvi2>dvi2|<dvi3>dvi3|<dvi4>dvi4}}"];
    C1[label = "{{<dvi1>dvi1}|{<name>C1}}"];  
    C2[label = "{{<dvi1>dvi1}|{<name>C2}}"];  
    C3[label = "{{<dvi1>dvi1}|{<name>C3}}"];  
    C4[label = "{{<dvi1>dvi1}|{<name>C4}}"];  
    D1[label = "{{<dvi1>dvi1}|{<name>D1}}"];  
    D2[label = "{{<dvi1>dvi1}|{<name>D2}}"];  
    "PC8":dvi1 -- "C1":dvi1;  
    "PC8":dvi2 -- "C2":dvi1;  
    "PC8":dvi3 -- "C3":dvi1;  
    "PC8":dvi4 -- "C4":dvi1;  
    "PC9":dvi1 -- "D1":dvi1;  
    "PC9":dvi2 -- "D2":dvi1;  
}

Answer

Phil H picture Phil H · Dec 7, 2009

Well, as with most questions...soon after I posted the I figured out the answer. I needed to add graph [overlap=false]; at the top of the file.

Do it like this:

graph g {
    overlap = false;

    node [shape=record,height=.1];
    /* ... */
}