Announcing dot-writer, a library for writing Graphviz DOT graphs

announcements
1

I published a crate called dot-writer! Very exciting, it's my first open source sortie. Its a library for writing graphs in the Graphviz DOT language, so you can write rust code like this:

 use dot_writer::{Color, DotWriter, Attributes, Shape, Style};

 let mut output_bytes = Vec::new();
 {
     let mut writer = DotWriter::from(&mut output_bytes);
     writer.set_pretty_print(false);
     let mut digraph = writer.digraph();
     {
         let mut cluster = digraph.cluster();
         cluster.set_style(Style::Filled);
         cluster.set_color(Color::LightGrey);
         cluster.node_attributes()
             .set_style(Style::Filled)
             .set_color(Color::White);
         cluster.edge("a0", "a1").edge("a2").edge("a3");
         cluster.set_label("process #1");
         // cluster goes out of scope here to write closing bracket
     }
     {
         let mut cluster = digraph.cluster();
         cluster.node_attributes()
             .set_style(Style::Filled);
         cluster.edge("b0", "b1").edge("b2").edge("b3");
         cluster.set_label("process #2");
         cluster.set_color(Color::Blue);
         // cluster goes out of scope here to write closing bracket
     }
     digraph.edge("start", "a0");
     digraph.edge("start", "b0");
     digraph.edge("a1", "b3");
     digraph.edge("b2", "a3");
     digraph.edge("a3", "a0");
     digraph.edge("a3", "end");
     digraph.edge("b3", "end");
     digraph.node_named("start")
         .set_shape(Shape::Mdiamond);
     digraph.node_named("end")
         .set_shape(Shape::Msquare);
     // digraph goes out of scope here to write closing bracket
     // then writer goes out of scope here to free up output_bytes for reading
 }
 println!("{}", std::str::from_utf8(output_bytes).unwrap());

To write DOT like this:

digraph {
  subgraph cluster_0 {
    style="filled";
    color=lightgray;
    node [style="filled", color=white];
    a0->a1->a2->a3;
    label="process #1";
  }
  subgraph cluster_1 {
    node [style="filled"];
    b0->b1->b2->b3;
    label="process #2";
    color=blue;
  }
  start->a0;
  start->b0;
  a1->b3;
  b2->a3;
  a3->a0;
  a3->end;
  b3->end;
  start [shape=Mdiamond];
  end [shape=Msquare];
}

Then it can be rendered with the dot executable (not part of this library) to create a lovely graph like this:

Complex example graph

As I mention, my first crate / open source library, so hoping to get some feedback on anything I might have missed :slight_smile:

6 Likes
2

That is a very creative concept! It certainly doesn't look like idiomatic rust, but with the comments explaining how you're using Drop, it makes enough sense. Good work!

3

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. We invite you to open a new topic if you have further questions or comments.