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Unit-4 Graph Traversal Algorithm

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6 views

Unit-4 Graph Traversal Algorithm

Uploaded by

alishasigh9
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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BFS algorithm

In this article, we will discuss the BFS algorithm in the data structure. Breadth-first
search is a graph traversal algorithm that starts traversing the graph from the root
node and explores all the neighboring nodes. Then, it selects the nearest node and
explores all the unexplored nodes. While using BFS for traversal, any node in the graph
can be considered as the root node.

There are many ways to traverse the graph, but among them, BFS is the most
commonly used approach. It is a recursive algorithm to search all the vertices of a tree
or graph data structure. BFS puts every vertex of the graph into two categories - visited
and non-visited. It selects a single node in a graph and, after that, visits all the nodes
adjacent to the selected node.

Applications of BFS algorithm


The applications of breadth-first-algorithm are given as follows -

o BFS can be used to find the neighboring locations from a given source location.
o In a peer-to-peer network, BFS algorithm can be used as a traversal method to
find all the neighboring nodes. Most torrent clients, such as BitTorrent, uTorrent,
etc. employ this process to find "seeds" and "peers" in the network.
o BFS can be used in web crawlers to create web page indexes. It is one of the
main algorithms that can be used to index web pages. It starts traversing from
the source page and follows the links associated with the page. Here, every web
page is considered as a node in the graph.
o BFS is used to determine the shortest path and minimum spanning tree.
o BFS is also used in Cheney's technique to duplicate the garbage collection.
o It can be used in ford-Fulkerson method to compute the maximum flow in a
flow network.

DFS (Depth First Search) algorithm


In this article, we will discuss the DFS algorithm in the data structure. It is a recursive
algorithm to search all the vertices of a tree data structure or a graph. The depth-first
search (DFS) algorithm starts with the initial node of graph G and goes deeper until we
find the goal node or the node with no children.

Because of the recursive nature, stack data structure can be used to implement the
DFS algorithm. The process of implementing the DFS is similar to the BFS algorithm.

The step by step process to implement the DFS traversal is given as follows -

1. First, create a stack with the total number of vertices in the graph.
2. Now, choose any vertex as the starting point of traversal, and push that vertex
into the stack.
3. After that, push a non-visited vertex (adjacent to the vertex on the top of the
stack) to the top of the stack.
4. Now, repeat steps 3 and 4 until no vertices are left to visit from the vertex on
the stack's top.
5. If no vertex is left, go back and pop a vertex from the stack.
6. Repeat steps 2, 3, and 4 until the stack is empty.
Applications of DFS algorithm
The applications of using the DFS algorithm are given as follows -

o DFS algorithm can be used to implement the topological sorting.


o It can be used to find the paths between two vertices.
o It can also be used to detect cycles in the graph.
o DFS algorithm is also used for one solution puzzles.
o DFS is used to determine if a graph is bipartite or not.

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