gxl2gv

Convert a graph from gxl to gv format

$ gxl2gv -o [output.gv] [input.gxl]

$ cat [input.gxl] | gxl2gv > [output.gv]

$ gxl2gv -?

gxl2gv [-o outfile] [files...]

-o outfile
    Specifies the name of the output file. If this option is not provided, gxl2gv writes the converted GV (DOT) output to standard output (stdout).

files
    One or more input files in GXL format to be converted. If no files are specified, gxl2gv reads its input from standard input (stdin).

The gxl2gv command is a utility within the Graphviz suite designed to transform graph data from the GXL (Graph eXchange Language) format into the GV (Graphviz DOT) language. GXL is an XML-based standard for representing and exchanging graph structures, commonly used in various graph-related applications. The GV (DOT) language, on the other hand, is Graphviz's proprietary plain text graph description language, widely used for specifying graphs that can then be rendered into visual representations (like images or PDFs) by other Graphviz tools such as dot, neato, or fdp.

This conversion utility acts as a bridge, allowing users who have graph data in GXL format to leverage the powerful visualization capabilities of Graphviz. It reads a GXL file (or standard input), parses its graph structure, and outputs a corresponding DOT file (or to standard output), which can then be directly fed into a Graphviz renderer for visualization.

The output of gxl2gv is a DOT language file, not a direct graphical rendering. To visualize the graph, the generated DOT file must be processed by another Graphviz layout and rendering engine (e.g., dot, neato, fdp).
Input GXL files must conform to the GXL DTD or schema; malformed input may result in errors or unexpected output.

gxl2gv can be used effectively in pipelines. For instance, to convert GXL from one source and immediately render it:

cat input.gxl | gxl2gv | dot -Tpng -o output.png

While GXL is a comprehensive XML-based standard for graph data exchange, providing rich semantic information, the DOT language focuses on the structural and visual attributes of graphs for rendering. gxl2gv performs a syntactic transformation, mapping GXL graph elements (nodes, edges, attributes) to their DOT equivalents to enable visualization.

gxl2gv is part of the open-source Graphviz project, which was originally developed at AT&T Labs Research. Graphviz, an acronym for Graph Visualization Software, has been continuously developed to provide a powerful and flexible platform for drawing abstract graphs and networks. gxl2gv was introduced as a specialized utility to facilitate interoperability between the GXL graph exchange standard and Graphviz's native DOT language, reflecting the project's commitment to supporting various graph data formats for visualization purposes.

dot(1), neato(1), fdp(1), gv2gxl(1), graphviz(1)