Any recommendations for drawing a hierarchically nested box diagram?

Question

Is there a package, tool, or method you would recommend for automatically drawing a large, complex, hierarchically nested box diagram, such as the sample below?

I'd like to provide the input in textual format (so that I can easily perform large changes) and get the result in vector format (e.g. PDF), suitable for using within LaTeX. These are the alternatives I am considering, but all require significant work to get the result I need.

• GNU pic with some macros
• Write a Processing program
• Write a script to generate nested LaTeX tables from simple textual input

Answer 1

I ended up designing and implementing a small domain-specific language for representing such figures. The language allows you to define

• horizontal, and vertical framed boxes (hbox, vbox)
• plain (unframed) composite boxes (pbox)
• horizontal and vertical labels (hl, vl)

Boxes are put side by side; a blank line continues the layout on the next line.

The Python script generates a stand-alone LaTeX document. You can find the script and examples in this GitHub repository. Below is an example of an image and the corresponding code.

hbox {
  hl Kernel Space
  hbox {
    hl System Call Interface
    vl break
    vl cemt
    vl ...
    vl unlink
    vl wait
    vl write
  }
  hbox Boot Loader

  vbox {
    hl Kernel Utility Functions
    vl alloc
    vl free
    vl wakeup
    vl mget
    vl access
    vl iget
  }
  pbox {
    hbox {
      hl I/O Subsystem
      hbox {
        pbox { # Special devices, named, and sockets
          hbox {
            hl Special Devices
            vl Line discipline
            vl Raw character
            vl Raw disk
          }
      hbox {
        hl Filesystem

        hbox inode layer

        hbox block layer
        }
      }

      hbox {
        hl Device Drivers
        hbox {
          hl Character Devices
          vl Keyboard
          vl Printer
          vl Paper tape
          vl ...
        }
    hbox {
      hl Block Devices
      vl rk: RK03 disk
      vl rf: RF11 disk
      vl mem
    }
      }
    }
  }
  hbox {
    hl Process Control Subsystem
    vl Scheduler
    vl Swap manager
    vl Memory manager
    vl ...
  }
}

Answer 2

I saw one that looked just like that many years ago. A quick Google shows it still exists. Still looks close to your requirements. I have no idea what its quality, features, etc are past it being a visual coding system w/ diagrams.

http://www.tersus.com/#Id=24