Graphviz graph positioning xlabels

Question

I have tried using xlp and also followed this graphviz thread (http://www.graphviz.org/content/how-use-xlp-attribute-positioning-external-labels-xlabel), but neither have actually worked.

This is my dot code:

digraph {
    forcelabels=true;
    rankdir=LR;
    graph[ranksep=1,nodesep=.5];
    node[shape=box];
    "start" [xlabel="start",xlp="0,0",shape=doublecircle,label=" "];
    "requested"->"fault";
    "requested"->"progress";
    "start"->"requested";
    "progress"->"fault";
    "progress"->"progress";
    "progress"->"complete";
    "fault" [xlabel="fault",shape=doublecircle,label=" "];
    "complete" [xlabel="complete",shape=doublecircle,label=" "];
}

And this is what it looks like:

Ideally start,fault, and complete would just be directly under the nodes, but I can't seem to postion the xlabels correctly.

Answer 1

If you use neato with the -n2 flag, you should be able to set the position of xlabel. You would need to specify the position of every node, though.

So if you had a file called lb.gv with the following contents:

digraph{
    forcelabels=true;
    rankdir=LR;
    graph[ranksep=1,nodesep=.5,margin=0.3,bgcolor=Transparent];

    node[shape=box];
    start [pos="0,0", xlp="23,54", xlabel=start, shape=doublecircle, label= " "];
    requested [pos="100,0"];
    progress [pos="250,-66"];
    fault [pos="400,70", xlp="424,124", xlabel=fault, shape=doublecircle,label= " "];
    complete [pos="400,-66", xlp="424,-10", xlabel=complete, shape=doublecircle,label= " "];
    requested->fault;
    requested->progress;
    start->requested;
    progress->fault;
    progress:w->progress:_;
    progress->complete;
}

You could run neato -n2 -Tpng lb.gv > test.png

That's what I got: