# R igraph manual pages

Use this if you are using igraph from R

## Difference of graphs

### Description

The difference of two graphs are created.

### Usage

## S3 method for class 'igraph'
difference(big, small, byname = "auto", ...)


### Arguments

 big The left hand side argument of the minus operator. A directed or undirected graph. small The right hand side argument of the minus operator. A directed ot undirected graph. byname A logical scalar, or the character scalar auto. Whether to perform the operation based on symbolic vertex names. If it is auto, that means TRUE if both graphs are named and FALSE otherwise. A warning is generated if auto and one graph, but not both graphs are named. ... Ignored, included for S3 compatibility.

### Details

difference creates the difference of two graphs. Only edges present in the first graph but not in the second will be be included in the new graph. The corresponding operator is %m%.

If the byname argument is TRUE (or auto and the graphs are all named), then the operation is performed based on symbolic vertex names. Otherwise numeric vertex ids are used.

difference keeps all attributes (graph, vertex and edge) of the first graph.

Note that big and small must both be directed or both be undirected, otherwise an error message is given.

### Value

A new graph object.

### Author(s)

Gabor Csardi csardi.gabor@gmail.com

### Examples


## Create a wheel graph
wheel <- union(make_ring(10),
make_star(11, center=11, mode="undirected"))
V(wheel)$name <- letters[seq_len(vcount(wheel))] ## Subtract a star graph from it sstar <- make_star(6, center=6, mode="undirected") V(sstar)$name <- letters[c(1,3,5,7,9,11)]
G <- wheel %m% sstar
print_all(G)
plot(G, layout=layout_nicely(wheel))


[Package igraph version 1.2.6 Index]