Plotting graph in ipython with igraph — “TypeError: There is no line property ”layout“”

Question

I'm recently install igraph on my windows machine running iPython through the Anaconda distribution. I have been following the tutorial on the igraph website to try and become familiar with igraph, as I typically use NetworkX. However, I'm having trouble actually drawing my graph.

At first, I realized it might be because I didn't enable pylab inline , and I was receiving the error: NameError: name 'plot' is not defined .

But after I enabled that and tried to plot the graph again, I got the error: TypeError: There is no line property "layout"

I simply want to draw my network in iPython, and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

import igraph

import cairo

g = igraph.Graph([(0,1), (0,2), (2,3), (3,4), (4,2), (2,5), (5,0), (6,3), (5,6)])

cairo.__path__
Out[4]: ['C:\\Users\\Curtis\\Anaconda\\lib\\site-packages\\cairo']

layout = g.layout_kamada_kawai()

plot(g, layout = layout)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
NameError                                 Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-6-df59bbbf0497> in <module>()
----> 1 plot(g, layout = layout)

NameError: name 'plot' is not defined

After enabling pylab inline:

pylab inline
Populating the interactive namespace from numpy and matplotlib

plot(g, layout = layout)


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TypeError                                 Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-8-df59bbbf0497> in <module>()
----> 1 plot(g, layout = layout)

C:\Users\Curtis\Anaconda\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\pyplot.pyc in plot(*args, **kwargs)
   2985         ax.hold(hold)
   2986     try:
-> 2987         ret = ax.plot(*args, **kwargs)
   2988         draw_if_interactive()
   2989     finally:

C:\Users\Curtis\Anaconda\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\axes.pyc in plot(self, *args, **kwargs)
   4135         lines = []
   4136 
-> 4137         for line in self._get_lines(*args, **kwargs):
   4138             self.add_line(line)
   4139             lines.append(line)

C:\Users\Curtis\Anaconda\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\axes.pyc in _grab_next_args(self, *args, **kwargs)
    315                 return
    316             if len(remaining) <= 3:
--> 317                 for seg in self._plot_args(remaining, kwargs):
    318                     yield seg
    319                 return

C:\Users\Curtis\Anaconda\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\axes.pyc in _plot_args(self, tup, kwargs)
    303         ncx, ncy = x.shape[1], y.shape[1]
    304         for j in xrange(max(ncx, ncy)):
--> 305             seg = func(x[:, j % ncx], y[:, j % ncy], kw, kwargs)
    306             ret.append(seg)
    307         return ret

C:\Users\Curtis\Anaconda\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\axes.pyc in _makeline(self, x, y, kw, kwargs)
    255                             **kw
    256                             )
--> 257         self.set_lineprops(seg, **kwargs)
    258         return seg
    259 

C:\Users\Curtis\Anaconda\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\axes.pyc in set_lineprops(self, line, **kwargs)
    196             funcName = "set_%s" % key
    197             if not hasattr(line, funcName):
--> 198                 raise TypeError('There is no line property "%s"' % key)
    199             func = getattr(line, funcName)
    200             func(val)

TypeError: There is no line property "layout"

Answer 1

Your command

plot(g, layout = layout)

has the problem. In the first case there is no plot . In the second case you have loaded all sorts of stuff from matplotlib to the common namespace, and plot refers to matplotlib.pyplot.plot .

What you really want to call is the igraph.plot . So, replace the line above by

igraph.plot(g, layout=layout)

to use the correct function.

---

Just a minimal example:

import igraph

g = igraph.Graph([(0,1), (0,2), (2,3), (3,4), (4,2), (2,5), (5,0), (6,3), (5,6)])
igraph.plot(g, target="/tmp/igraph_demo.png")

creates:

Note that this creates a file. If your plot without the target="..." and do not get anything on the screen, it is a configuration issue. The solution depends on your OS. ( igraph uses cairo for SVG plotting.)