If DOT fails to generate a graph can we sfdp instead?

[spyhunter99]

I'm running into some cases where dot is failing to render graphs and in some cases, it actually causes javadocs to fail completely for a module. As a work around I've experimented with using graphiz's sfdp and have had some luck.

question, is there some mechanism I can use to increase the logging in order to identify the root cause of the failure.

finally is the output of sfdp the same output as dot? I have a branch whipped up that will run dot and if it fails, run sfdp before giving up. Is this the right approach? Edit: I can open a PR for this

[dspinellis]

I have never seen dot fail on correct input, so this is probably a UMLGraph bug. Can you provide a small example (one class) that replicates it? Running UMLgraph on this class will give you the dot file.

[spyhunter99]

Ok i'll see what i can dig up. I'm not 100% sure what causes the issue. I'll try to narrow it down. It seems to happen most frequently on android projects that have dependencies on some of the google services.

[robross0606]

I'm seeing a TON of graphviz failures/crashes running our source code through the latest release. It is a fairly large code base though. What is the minimum I can send you to help debug this problem?

[ooxi]

@robross0606 please don't hijack another issue. graphviz crashes should be reported to graphviz. To reproduce failures it would be nice if you could post the source generated by UMLGraph and graphviz' output :-)

[robross0606]

Apologies, I'm NOT hijacking the issue. I have the same problem. When I said "latest release", I mean the latest release of UMLGraph. I just neglected to mention that I was having the problems via UMLGraph. I am NOT having problems directly with GraphViz. Only running GraphViz thru UMLGraph. And I wasn't adding another issue. I was offering to HELP by providing you with examples of what appears to be the same problem.

[dspinellis]

Thank you for the discussion. Does one of you have UMLGraph output that causes GraphViz to crash and a test case that can reproduce it?

[robross0606]

I'll see if I can generate something. I don't have a small isolated test case yet. It is happening as part of a very large build, so I need to construct something to give you a test case. I can most likely cherry pick some quick samples of UMLGraph output that is causing GraphViz to crash.

[kno10]

There are plenty of crash reports for graphviz, and unfortunately it does not appear that they will get fixed anytime soon. I have reported an example graph - generated by UMLgraph, but trimmed down to the minimum - here: https://gitlab.com/graphviz/graphviz/issues/1355
I have the impression it is related to the handling of ports on tables, in particular with implicit "nearest side", and maybe only with multi-edges.

[kno10]

I made a pull request #47 with a tiny change that seems to avoid the bug for me.
@spyhunter99 @robross0606 can you try if adding the :c to the port attachments helps?

[kno10]

Btw, an alternative would be to use http://viz-js.com/ in the browser instead of graphviz at generation time. Apparently this is graphviz compiled into JavaScript. It renders the example linked above correctly.

[kno10]

@spyhunter99 @robross0606 do you still see these problems? Right now, it works again for me; maybe because of a change in the graphviz package.