usr/src/usr.bin/tsort/tsort.1

.\" Copyright (c) 1990 The Regents of the University of California.
.\" All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" This manual is derived from one contributed to Berkeley by
.\" Michael Rendell of Memorial University of Newfoundland.
.\"
.\" %sccs.include.redist.man%
.\"
.\"     @(#)tsort.1     6.2 (Berkeley) %G%
.\"
.TH tsort 1 ""
.AT 3
.SH NAME
tsort \- topological sort of a directed graph
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.ft B
tsort [ file ]
.ft R
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Tsort
takes a list of pairs of node names representing directed arcs in
a graph and prints the nodes in topological order on standard output.
Input is taken from the named file, or from standard input if no file
is given.
.PP
Node names in the input are separated by white space and there must be an
even number of nodes.
.PP
Presence of a node in a graph can be represented by an arc from the node
to itself.
This is useful when a node is not connected to any other nodes.
.PP
If the graph contains a cycle (and therefore cannot be properly sorted),
one of the arcs in the cycle is ignored and the sort continues.
Cycles are reported on standard error.