Port for drawing directed graphs?

[Michaël Grünewald]

Polytropon wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:31:57 -0400, John Almberg <jalmberg at identry.com> wrote:
>> I am working on some software that must, as it's final output,  
>> produce a printout of a directed graph... nodes, connected by  
>> directed links.
>>
>> The printout could be generated by a postscript file, jpg, whatever.
>>
>> Does anyone know of a utility (in ports?) that can take a data set  
>> (for example, a two dimensional array that defines the nodes and the  
>> links between them), and produce a printable graph?
>>
>> Any help much appreciated.
> 
> I think it's possible to use LaTeX for this, as long as you're
> willing to provide the document basis, put an \include for the
> drawing contents and then have a small processing script that
> generates this file. There is some LaTeX document class that
> supports graphs, I think. The output would be PS or PDF.

TeX and LaTeX usually come with a tool called METAPOST, which reads 
instructions to draw a picture and outputs a postscript file. This is 
definitely the best choice to produce figures t put in LaTeX document, 
but may be useful in solo operation too. The language for METAPOST is 
adapted to notations like z1 = 1/2(z2 + z3) or z1l = z1 + left and z1r = 
z1 + right, so it's a really unusual stuff but one gets quickly 
accustomed with the basics. There is many web pages providing tips for 
meta post, I also recommand a paper written by André Heck on the subject.
-- 
Michaël