Simplify

Simplify

This example shows how to remove self loops and multiple edges using simplify().

We start with a graph that includes loops and multiedges:

import igraph as ig
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# Generate graph with multiple edges and loops
g1 = ig.Graph([
    (0, 1),
    (1, 2),
    (2, 3),
    (3, 4),
    (4, 0),
    (0, 0),
    (1, 4),
    (1, 4),
    (0, 2),
    (2, 4),
    (2, 4),
    (2, 4),
    (3, 3)],
)

To get rid of both loops and multiedges, we make a copy of the graph and simplify it in place:

# Generate simplified version of graph
g2 = g1.copy()
g2.simplify()

Finally, we check what happened by plotting both graphs:

# Plot graphs
visual_style = {
    "vertex_color": "lightblue",
    "vertex_size": 0.4,
    "vertex_label": [0, 1, 2, 3, 4],
}

# Make twin axes
fig, axs = plt.subplots(1, 2, sharex=True, sharey=True)
# Plot graphs
ig.plot(
    g1,
    layout="circle",
    target=axs[0],
    **visual_style,
)
ig.plot(
    g2,
    layout="circle",
    target=axs[1],
    **visual_style,
)
# Draw rectangles around axes
axs[0].add_patch(plt.Rectangle(
    (0, 0), 1, 1, fc='none', ec='k', lw=4, transform=axs[0].transAxes,
    ))
axs[1].add_patch(plt.Rectangle(
    (0, 0), 1, 1, fc='none', ec='k', lw=4, transform=axs[1].transAxes,
    ))
# Set titles
axs[0].set_title('Multigraph...')
axs[1].set_title('...simplified')
plt.show()

The original graph (left) versus the simplified graph (right).