Etched

A domain-specific language and compiler for describing directed graphs as structured text, with automatic layout and SVG rendering.

What it does

Write your graph in a clean, readable syntax. Etched tokenizes and parses your source into an AST, runs a topological sort to determine node ordering, computes a layered grid layout, and emits an SVG file ready to use anywhere.

Syntax

A graph has a name, a set of node declarations, and a set of edge statements.

graph "Order Processing" {
    node start "Start"
    node browse "Browse"
    node cart "Cart"
    node checkout {
        title: "Checkout"
        style { 
        shape: circle 
        fill: true 
        color: "blue" 
        }
    }

    start -> browse -> cart
    cart -> "proceed" -> checkout -> "confirm" -> review
}

Node declarations define a node's title and optional style. A simple node takes a string literal as its title. An expanded node uses a block with title and style fields.

Edge statements describe connections between nodes. Edges can be bare (a -> b) or labeled (a -> "label" -> b), and can form chains of any length.

Building

Requires a C++23 compiler and CMake 3.5 or later.

cmake -B build
cmake --build build

Usage

./Etched <input_file>

Status

The compiler pipeline (tokenizing, parsing, and layout) is complete. SVG emission is in progress.