Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
'Ben','Zoe',3,'255,0,0'
'Tim','Zoe',2,'255,0,255'
Note
You can learn more about the GDF file format at
http://gephi.github.io/users/
supported-graph-formats/gdf-format/
.
The file is set out with the nodes first, followed by the links. The first row of
the nodes section is similar to the first row of a nodes CSV file:
•
nodedef>
—The header row starts with the keyword
nodedef>
to
clearly mark out the start of the nodes section. There is no space
between
nodedef
and the greater-than symbol.
•
Node column
—The first column is required to be the node column.
The convention is that this column is titled
name
, and some software
requires it to have this title.
•
Label column
—An optional label column is used to define the label to
apply to the node. A label column is almost always very useful to have,
even if it is a duplicate of the name column. It is even better to have a
label that is short, for example,
'LGA'
instead of
'New York La
Guardia Airport'
or
'US'
instead of
'United States'
, because
long labels tend to overlap and obscure each other later in the graph
visualization steps.
•
Other node columns
—Additional columns can be added, such as
color, width, visibility, position, and so on. Not all graph software is
going to necessarily automatically use these attributes even if they are
present. Some software requires that these columns be in a specific
order. For example, according to
http://gephi.org/users/
supported-graph-formats/gdf-format/
,
the Gephi graph visualization
software documentation indicates that it supports attributes when listed
as columns with the following names in the following order:
•
name
•
label
