Export-PSGraph

This is the command that executes the GraphViz engine to generate the DOT formated syntax into an image.

Common usage

Here are the common ways to use this command.

Process a .dot or .gv file

If you have an existing text file in the DOT format, you can pass it to Export-PSGraph to generate the resulting image.

$files | Export-PSGraph
Export-PSGraph -Source $files

This will create a new png file next to the existing file by default.

Processing a text stream

Instead of saving your graphs to files first, you can pipe them directly to the Export-Graph command.

graph g {
    edge a,b,c,d,a
} | Export-PSGraph -DestinationPath $path

Because there is no source file, you need to provide a destination path. If none is provided, it will save it ot the $env:temp folder under a random name.

Arguments

-ShowGraph

Specifying this will auto open the resulting file in the default viewer for that file type. I use this a lot when designing a graph to quickly see the result.

-Source [string]

This is the input source to be exported. It can either be a list of file paths to process or text representation of a graph to be processes by the GraphViz engine.

-DestinationPath [string]

The location to save the file. If not specified, it will either save next to the original file or to the $env:temp folder.

OutputFormat

This is the output filetype that is generated. The default value is *.png. If the -DestinationPath specifies a format in the name then that will be used instead.

These are the valid options for output formats:

  • png (default)
  • jpg
  • gif
  • imap
  • cmapx
  • jp2
  • json
  • pdf
  • plain
  • dot

-LayoutEngine [enum]

GraphViz supports multiple layout engines. Each work better on different types of datasets.

These are the available engines:

  • Hierarchical (Default)
  • Radial
  • Circular
  • SpringModelSmall
  • SpringModelMedium
  • SpringModelLarge