Presentation for use with the textbook, Algorithm Design and

Applications, by M. T. Goodrich and R. Tamassia, Wiley, 2015

Breadth-First Search
L0
A

L1
B C D

L2
E F

© 2015 Goodrich and Tamassia Breadth-First Search 1

 Breadth-First Search
q  Breadth-first search q  BFS on a graph with n
(BFS) is a general vertices and m edges
technique for traversing takes O(n + m ) time
a graph
q  BFS can be further
q  A BFS traversal of a
extended to solve other
graph G
n  Visits all the vertices and
graph problems
edges of G n  Find and report a path
n  Determines whether G is with the minimum
connected number of edges
n  Computes the connected between two given
components of G vertices
n  Computes a spanning n  Find a simple cycle, if
forest of G there is one
© 2015 Goodrich and Tamassia Breadth-First Search 2
 BFS Algorithm
q  The algorithm uses “levels” Li and a mechanism for setting and getting
“labels” of vertices and edges.

© 2015 Goodrich and Tamassia Breadth-First Search 3

 Example
L0
A
A unexplored vertex
A visited vertex L1
B C D
unexplored edge
discovery edge E F
cross edge

L0 L0
A A

L1 L1
B C D B C D

E F E F

© 2015 Goodrich and Tamassia Breadth-First Search 4

 Example (cont.)
L0 L0
A A

L1 L1
B C D B C D

L2
E F E F

L0 L0
A A

L1 L1
B C D B C D

L2 L2
E F E F

© 2015 Goodrich and Tamassia Breadth-First Search 5

 Example (cont.)
L0 L0
A A

L1 L1
B C D B C D

L2 L2
E F E F

L0
A

L1
B C D

L2
E F

© 2015 Goodrich and Tamassia Breadth-First Search 6

 Properties
Notation A
Gs: connected component of s
Property 1 B C D
BFS(G, s) visits all the vertices and
edges of Gs
E F
Property 2
The discovery edges labeled by
BFS(G, s) form a spanning tree Ts
L0
of Gs A
Property 3
For each vertex v in Li L1
B C D
n  The path of Ts from s to v has i
edges L2
n  Every path from s to v in Gs has at E F
least i edges
© 2015 Goodrich and Tamassia Breadth-First Search 7
 Analysis
q  Setting/getting a vertex/edge label takes O(1) time
q  Each vertex is labeled twice
n  once as UNEXPLORED
n  once as VISITED
q  Each edge is labeled twice
n  once as UNEXPLORED
n  once as DISCOVERY or CROSS
q  Each vertex is inserted once into a sequence Li
q  Method incidentEdges is called once for each vertex
q  BFS runs in O(n + m) time provided the graph is
represented by the adjacency list structure
n  Recall that Σv deg(v) = 2m
© 2015 Goodrich and Tamassia Breadth-First Search 8
 Applications
q  We can use the BFS traversal algorithm, for a
graph G, to solve the following problems in
O(n + m) time
n  Compute the connected components of G
n  Compute a spanning forest of G
n  Find a simple cycle in G, or report that G is a
forest
n  Given two vertices of G, find a path in G between
them with the minimum number of edges, or
report that no such path exists

© 2015 Goodrich and Tamassia Breadth-First Search 9

 DFS vs. BFS
Applications DFS BFS
Spanning forest, connected
√ √
components, paths, cycles
Shortest paths √

Biconnected components √

L0
A A

L1
B C D B C D

L2
E F E F

DFS BFS
© 2015 Goodrich and Tamassia Breadth-First Search 10
 DFS vs. BFS (cont.)
Back edge (v,w) Cross edge (v,w)
n  w is an ancestor of v in n  w is in the same level as
the tree of discovery v or in the next level
edges

L0
A A

L1
B C D B C D

L2
E F E F

DFS BFS
© 2015 Goodrich and Tamassia Breadth-First Search 11