GraphML

GraphML is an XML-based file format for graphs. The GraphML file format results from the joint effort of the graph drawing community to define a common format for exchanging graph structure data. It uses an XML-based syntax and supports the entire range of possible graph structure constellations including directed, undirected, mixed graphs, hypergraphs, and application-specific attributes.

Introduction to GraphML

Here is what a simple undirected graph with 2 nodes and one edge between them looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<graphml xmlns="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns"  
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns
     http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/xmlns/1.0/graphml.xsd">
  <graph id="G" edgedefault="undirected">
    <node id="n0"/>
    <node id="n1"/>
    <edge id="e1" source="n0" target="n1"/>
  </graph>
</graphml>

Other Graph File Formats

• GXL, graph exchange format based on XML -- GXL
• Trivial Graph Format, simple text based format
• GML is another widely used graph exchange format. -- GML
• DGML, Directed Graph Markup Language from Microsoft
• XGMML an XML-based graph markup language closely related to GML -- XGMML
• Dot Language, a format for describing graphs and their presentation, for the Graphviz set of tools.

See also

• XML
• Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an XML-based graphics format.
• yEd, a widespread graph editor that uses GraphML as its native file format.
• Gephi, a graph visualization software that completely supports GraphML.

External links

• http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/ homepage of GraphML
• http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/primer/graphml-primer.html An easy introduction to GraphML is the GraphML Primer.
• http://www.svgopen.org/2003/papers/ComparisonXML2SVGTransformationMechanisms/ Comparison between XML to SVG Transformation Mechanisms