World Airline Route Search

CSCE 3110 Data Structures Project

Total: 100 points + 60 points bonus

Due date: 07/25/2023 at 11:59pm

Introduction
In this project, you will be designing and implementing algorithms to store and search
graphs. World Airline (WA) flies to many destinations worldwide including: Moscow,
Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and London. Complete detailed information regarding airline
flight routes can be found from the link flight.txt. The flight.txt contains a “from city”
and its destination cities that WA flights to. Note that the flight.txt is a synthetically
generated datasets by a graph data generator graphGen.cpp. You may want to download
the project zip file from CANVAS and generate a few more graphs with different number
of cities to test your algorithms.

Your task
Your task is to design and implement algorithms to answer the following questions:
1. I am in city “A”, can I fly to city “B” with less than x connections? Give me the
route with the smallest number of connections or tell me there is no such a route.
2. Give me the route with the smallest number of connections from city “A” to city
“D” through city “B” and “C”. (the order of “B” and “C” is not important). Or
tell me there is no such a route
3. I want to start from city “A”, visit all the cities that can be reached and then come
back to “A” using as less connections as possible. Give me a route or tell me there
is no such a route. (note: once you come back to “A”, you do not go out
anymore).
4. I am in city “A”, my friend John is in a different city “B”, and my other friend
Ann is in yet another different city “C”. We want to find a city different from the
three cities we are in to meet so that the total number of connections among three
of us is minimized. Tell me the city we should fly to and the routes for us or tell
me there is no such a city.

You will need to process the documents and store their content in the data structures that
you selected. Next, for every question, you will search your data structure using an
algorithm of your choice. You have the freedom to select the data structures and
algorithms that you consider to be more efficient for the tasks. Of course, you will have
to justify your decisions. No fancy user interface is expected (fancy interface may be
counted towards extra credits though). You program should take a few parameters with
the first as the number of the question (1-4). The rest of the parameters and output of the
four questions (1-4) are described as follows assuming your program is called
routeSearch:
1. usage: routeSearch 1 <city_A> <city_B> <num_connection>
 sample output:
city_A to city_x to city_y … to city_B
total connection: 4
2. usage: routeSearch 2 <city_A> through <city_B> and <city_C> to <city_D>
sample output:
city_A to city_x to city_C to city_y … to city_B to city_D
smallest number of connection: 4
3. usage: routeSearch 3 <city_A>
sample output:
city_A to city_x to city_y … to city_z to city_A
smallest number of connection: 4

Note: this query has been into an extra credit problem. 50 extra credits will be
given if you do this query (algorithm design, analysis, implementation,
optimization etc). The total 100 points does not include the 50 extra credits for
this problem.

4. usage: routeSearch 4 <city_A> <city_B> <city_C>

You can choose to work alone or work with another student as a team of two. If you
choose to work in a team, both of you will receive the same score for the project.
However, you will need to explicitly specify each person’s portion of work in the
appendix of your written report. This information is used only when a student’s final
letter grade is on the boundary.

Note: if it takes too long for your program to finish the tasks, try to generate smaller
graphs using the provided graphGen.cpp.

What to turn in

There are two main parts in this project, all of them contributing to the final project
grade. Submit all these two parts on Canvas in a zip file.

1. You will have to write a project report (about 3-5 typed pages – single space – 12pt
font) that includes:
- name of team members
- design issues, what are the problems and how you solve them
- data structures you use, the decision behind selecting them
- algorithms you employ, again with a justification of your decision
 - particular emphasis should be placed on the running time of your algorithm,
please show the asymptotic costs for each of your algorithm
- optimization issues: what could you do to further optimize your algorithm
- you need to specifically address the problem of scalability: would you
implementation be efficient in the case of very large species collections for
larger scale geographic area?
- any other remarks about your design and implementation
- you need to take screenshot of your test running result and attach as
appendix in the report

2. You will have to send in a fully working program, written in C++. We will test your
algorithms extensively by generating graphs with different characteristics. It is mandatory
that you include a README file, as detailed as possible, including compilation and
running instructions. Is it also mandatory that your programs are fully documented, that
is they should include detailed comments on what is included in each file and what each
method does. Create a zip file with name CSCE3110_Project.zip/7z including all of your
programs, report, README, etc. Submit your zip file to Project drop box in CANVAS
by 07/25/2023 before midnight. Late project will not be accepted.

Grading
Design issues, data structures efficiency, algorithms,
other issues addressed in the written report - 70 points
Program (should compile and run correctly, have an
associated README file, should be fully documented) - 30 points
Extra - up to 60 points (50
points for query 3 + 10 points extra credit may be given if you implement a fancy
interface (question menu, graph drawing Web based, other))

Notes
* No late submissions are accepted!

* Up to 60 points extra credit may be given (50 points for query 3 + 10 points extra credit
may be given if you implement a fancy interface (question menu, graph drawing Web
based, other))