S-Dot is an S-Expression syntax for the input language of the 'Dot' graph drawing tool from the AT&T GraphViz suite. With S-Dot, you can render 'Dot' graphs from within Common Lisp.

S-Dot is the little sister of DotML.

First, you have to type or generate an s-expression such as the one above. The file s-dot.lisp contains the simple syntax checking function (check-syntax):

(check-syntax '(graph ((label "foo"))
        (node ((id "bar") (baz "123")))
        (edge ((from "bar") (to "bar")))))

... raises this error:

attribute BAZ is not allowed in NODE elements, 
        context: (NODE ((ID bar) (BAZ 123)))
        [Condition of type SIMPLE-ERROR]

The function (s-dot->dot <stream> <graph ...) (also in s-dot.lisp) generates the dot code:

(s-dot->dot t '(graph ((label "foo"))
        (node ((id "bar"))) (edge ((from "bar") (to "bar")))))

... results in this (shortened) output:

digraph g {compound="true";label="foo";
        node[label="bar"]{bar}; edge bar->bar;}

s-dot.lisp also contains an example how to invoke the dot tool on the generated code:

(defun render-s-dot (file-name format graph &key (check-syntax t))
  (let ((dot-file-name 
         (make-pathname :directory (pathname-directory file-name)
                        :name (pathname-name file-name) 
                        :type "dot")))
    (with-open-file (stream dot-file-name :direction :output 
                            :if-exists :supersede
                            :if-does-not-exist :create)
        (s-dot->dot stream graph :check-syntax check-syntax))
        (asdf:run-shell-command 
          (format nil "dot -o ~a -T~a ~a" 
                  file-name format dot-file-name)))
      

However, this is only an example. Note that it is faster to directly pipe the data to the 'dot' tool.

S-DOT can be downloaded from http://martin-loetzsch.de/S-DOT/s-dot.tar.gz. The current version is 1.1.

It can be also installed via ASDF-Install:

(asdf-install:install 's-dot)

After successful installation, S-DOT can be loaded with

(asdf:operate 'asdf:load-op :s-dot)

Yes it is. You can do whatever you want with it as long as you mention that you use it. See the licence for details.

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