[Dot] Strange behavior when layouting workflow diagrams
Ported Issue from Mantis Original ID: 2489 Attached file(s) mentioned may only be available on the Mantis Tracker. Reported By: joevicentini
SEVERITY: NORMAL Submitted: 2014-09-17 04:29:23
OS: WINDOWS
OS BUILD: 7
PLATFORM: PC
DESCRIPTION
I've detected a strange behavior on Graphviz when trying to layout horizontal workflows.
The graph i'm trying to layout is nothing more than a directed graph with nodes representing tasks and edges representing the flow, with the graph pointing towards a direction (left to right, in my case).
The issue is when there is a reflux, in other words, an edge pointing back to a node that has already been represented. In this case, the edge ALWAYS chooses the upward direction, when there is a more obvious best path if it chooses downwards (no crossover with other paths).
The picture attached to this ticket explains more clearly this behavior.
STEPS TO REPRODUCE
You can use this dot code to reproduce the issue:
digraph G {
rankdir=LR;1682->1682[style=invis];1686:e->6554:w;
6555:e->1698:w;
1682:e->1684:w;
1703:e->6555:w;
1693:e->6554:w;
1691:e->1693:w;
1696:e->6555:w;
1688:e->1689:w;
1701:e->1703:w;
1706:e->1683:w;
1690:e->1691:w;
1684:e->1686:w;
6554:e->1688:w;
1698:e->1700:w;
1704:e->1706:w;
1694:e->1696:w;
1698:e->1699:w;
1700:e->1701:w;
1688:e->1690:w;
1689:e->1694:w;
1699:e->1704:w;
}