PDF)¶

prov.dot turns a document into a pydot graph, which can then be written out in any format Graphviz supports.

Important

Rendering needs a local Graphviz installation (the dot executable) in addition to the pydot Python package (which is a core dependency of prov, always installed). Installing pydot alone is not enough — this is the most common source of confusion:

macOS: brew install graphviz
Debian/Ubuntu: apt install graphviz
Windows: download and run the installer from https://graphviz.org/download/

Without it, dot.write_*() calls below fail (typically with a FileNotFoundError for the dot executable, surfaced by pydot as an assertion/Exception depending on version) — verify Graphviz is on PATH with dot -V before debugging your own code.

Convert a document to a `pydot.Dot`¶

import prov.model as pm
from prov.dot import prov_to_dot

document = pm.ProvDocument()
document.set_default_namespace("http://example.org/")
e = document.entity("e1")
a = document.activity("a1")
document.wasGeneratedBy(e, a)

dot = prov_to_dot(document)

Write PNG, SVG, or PDF¶

pydot.Dot has a write_<format> method for most Graphviz output formats:

dot.write_png("document.png")
dot.write_svg("document.svg")
dot.write_pdf("document.pdf")

Layout direction¶

direction controls the rank direction Graphviz lays the graph out in — "BT" (bottom-to-top, the default), "TB", "LR", or "RL":

dot_lr = prov_to_dot(document, direction="LR")
dot_lr.write_svg("document-lr.svg")

Hide attribute annotations¶

By default every element and relation gets an attached note node listing its non-formal attributes. Turn either off to declutter dense graphs:

dot_plain = prov_to_dot(
    document,
    show_element_attributes=False,
    show_relation_attributes=False,
)

Use labels instead of identifiers¶

Pass use_labels=True to show each element’s prov:label (falling back to its identifier) as the node text instead of always showing the identifier:

document.entity("e1", {pm.PROV_LABEL: "Crime report"})
dot_labelled = prov_to_dot(document, use_labels=True)

Hide n-ary relation elements¶

Relations with more than two formal attributes (e.g. a wasDerivedFrom recording an activity and usage/generation) render every element by default. Set show_nary=False to draw only the first two:

dot_binary = prov_to_dot(document, show_nary=False)

All together¶

dot = prov_to_dot(
    document,
    show_nary=True,
    use_labels=False,
    direction="BT",
    show_element_attributes=True,
    show_relation_attributes=True,
)

See prov.dot.prov_to_dot() for the full parameter reference.