This page contains the common catches when using the igraph R package.
Dealing with node names
Given a igraph object g, one way to get the node names is to write V(g). While this will display the node names, you can't use it as a vector. To get a character vector of node names use get.vertex.attribute(g, 'name') or V(g)$name
Having gotten a vector node names, remember that many igraph functions will take a vertex id when specifying a vertex. But vertex id's start from 0. Thus if you use the index of the node name directly as a vertex id, it will be off by 1. You need to subtract 1.
Example
> g <- graph.atlas(1000)
> V(g)$name <- c("Alfred","Benny","Cristina","Delphine","Emily","Frank")
> V(g)$name <- c("Alfred","Benny","Cristina","Delphine","Emily","Frank","Gus")
> V(g)$name
[1] "Alfred" "Benny" "Cristina" "Delphine" "Emily" "Frank" "Gus"
V(g)$name is an R object, starting with 1 :
> V(g)$name[1]
[1] "Alfred"
but V(g) is an igraph object, starting with 0 :
> V(g)[0]
Vertex sequence:
[1] "Alfred"
or
> V(g)[0]$name
[1] "Alfred"
Dealing with node names when plotting
Node names are not automatically plotted. Name attribute can be reached with $name while what appears in the plot is the label attribute : $label. If you want to plot the names, simply type the following and then plot the graph.
V(g)$label <- V(g)$name
