Graphs

Breadth First Search

&
Depth First Search
by
Shailendra Upadhye
Contents
 Overview of Graph terminology.
 Graph representation.
 Breadth first search.
 Depth first search. – if time permits
 Pseudocode walkthrough using sample graphs.
 Applications of BFS and DFS.
 References.
 Q&A
 Working example for BFS.
Graph terminology - overview
 A graph consists of
 set of vertices V = {v1, v2, ….. vn}
 set of edges that connect the vertices E ={e1, e2, …. em}
 Two vertices in a graph are adjacent if there is an
edge connecting the vertices.
 Two vertices are on a path if there is a sequences
of vertices beginning with the first one and ending
with the second one
 Graphs with ordered edges are directed. For
directed graphs, vertices have in and out degrees.
 Weighted Graphs have values associated with
edges.

Data structures with C++ using STL by For

d, William; Topp, William; Prentice Hall
Graph representation – undirected

graph Adjacency list Adjacency matrix

ref. Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas

Cormen
Graph representation – directed

graph Adjacency list Adjacency matrix

ref. Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas

Cormen
Some notes
 Adjacency list representation is usually
preferred since it is more efficient in
representing sparse graphs.
 Graphs for which |E| is much less than |V|2
 Adjacency list requires memory of the order
of θ(V+E)

 Searching a graph means systematically

following the edges of the graph so as to visit
the vertices.
Breadth first search
 Given
 a graph G=(V,E) – set of vertices and edges
 a distinguished source vertex s
 Breadth first search systematically explores the
edges of G to discover every vertex that is
reachable from s.
 It also produces a ‘breadth first tree’ with root s that
contains all the vertices reachable from s.
 For any vertex v reachable from s, the path in the
breadth first tree corresponds to the shortest path in
graph G from s to v.
 It works on both directed and undirected graphs.
However, we will explore only directed graphs.

ref. Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas

Cormen
Breadth first search

It is so named because

It discovers all vertices at distance k from s before

discovering vertices at distance k+1.

Animation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Animated_BFS.gif

ref. Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas

Cormen
Breadth first search - concepts
 To keep track of progress, it colors each
vertex - white, gray or black.
 All vertices start white.
 A vertex discovered first time during the
search becomes nonwhite.
 All vertices adjacent to black ones are
discovered. Whereas, gray ones may have
some white adjacent vertices.
 Gray represent the frontier between
discovered and undiscovered vertices.

ref. Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas

Cormen
BFS – How it produces a Breadth first
tree
 The tree initially contains only root. – s
 Whenever a vertex v is discovered in
scanning adjacency list of vertex u
 Vertex v and edge (u,v) are added to the tree.
BFS - algorithm
BFS(G, s) // G is the graph and s is the starting node
1 for each vertex u ∈ V [G] - {s}
2 do color[u] ← WHITE // color of vertex u
3 d[u] ← ∞ // distance from source s to vertex u
4 π[u] ← NIL // predecessor of u
5 color[s] ← GRAY
6 d[s] ← 0
7 π[s] ← NIL
8 Q←Ø // Q is a FIFO - queue
9 ENQUEUE(Q, s)
10 while Q ≠ Ø // iterates as long as there are gray vertices. Lines 10-18
11 do u ← DEQUEUE(Q)
12 for each v ∈ Adj[u]
13 do if color[v] = WHITE // discover the undiscovered adjacent vertices
14 then color[v] ← GRAY // enqueued whenever painted gray
15 d[v] ← d[u] + 1
16 π[v] ← u
17 ENQUEUE(Q, v)
18 color[u] ← BLACK // painted black whenever dequeued

ref. Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas

Cormen
Breadth First Search - example

ref. Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas

Cormen
Breadth first search - analysis
 Enqueue and Dequeue happen only once for
each node. - O(V).
 Sum of the lengths of adjacency lists – θ(E)
(for a directed graph)
 Initialization overhead O(V)

Total runtime O(V+E)

ref. Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas

Cormen
Depth first search
 It searches ‘deeper’ the graph when possible.
 Starts at the selected node and explores as far as
possible along each branch before backtracking.
 Vertices go through white, gray and black stages of
color.
 White – initially
 Gray – when discovered first
 Black – when finished i.e. the adjacency list of the vertex is
completely examined.
 Also records timestamps for each vertex
 d[v] when the vertex is first discovered
 f[v] when the vertex is finished

ref. Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas

Cormen
Depth first search - algorithm
DFS(G)
1 for each vertex u ∈ V [G]
2 do color[u] ← WHITE // color all vertices white, set their parents NIL
3 π[u] ← NIL
4 time ← 0 // zero out time
5 for each vertex u ∈ V [G] // call only for unexplored vertices
6 do if color[u] = WHITE // this may result in multiple sources
7 then DFS-VISIT(u)

DFS-VISIT(u)
1 color[u] ← GRAY ▹White vertex u has just been discovered.
2 time ← time +1
3 d[u] time // record the discovery time
4 for each v ∈ Adj[u] ▹Explore edge(u, v).
5 do if color[v] = WHITE
6 then π[v] ← u // set the parent value
7 DFS-VISIT(v) // recursive call
8 color[u] BLACK ▹ Blacken u; it is finished.
9 f [u] ▹ time ← time +1

ref. Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas

Cormen
Depth first search – example

ref. Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas

Cormen
Depth first search - analysis
 Lines 1-3, initialization take time Θ(V).
 Lines 5-7 take time Θ(V), excluding the time to call
the DFS-VISIT.
 DFS-VISIT is called only once for each node (since
it’s called only for white nodes and the first step in it
is to paint the node gray).
 Loop on line 4-7 is executed |Adj(v)| times. Since,
∑vєV |Adj(v)| = Ө (E), the total cost of DFS-VISIT it
θ(E)

The total cost of DFS is θ(V+E)

ref. Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas

Cormen
BFS and DFS - comparison
 Space complexity of DFS is lower than that of BFS.
 Time complexity of both is same – O(|V|+|E|).
 The behavior differs for graphs where not all the
vertices can be reached from the given vertex s.
 Predecessor subgraphs produced by DFS may be
different than those produced by BFS. The BFS
product is just one tree whereas the DFS product
may be multiple trees.
BFS and DFS – possible applications
 Exploration algorithms in Artificial Intelligence
 Possible to use in routing / exploration wherever travel is
involved. E.g.,
 I want to explore all the nearest pizza places and want to go to
the nearest one with only two intersections.
 Find distance from my factory to every delivery center.

 Most of the mapping software (GOOGLE maps, YAHOO(?)

maps) should be using these algorithms.
 Companies like Waste Management, UPS and FedEx?

 Applications of DFS
 Topologically sorting a directed acyclic graph.
 List the graph elements in such an order that all the nodes are listed
before nodes to which they have outgoing edges.
 Finding the strongly connected components of a directed graph.
 List all the subgraphs of a strongly connected graph which
themselves are strongly connected.
References
 Data structures with C++ using STL by Ford,
William; Topp, William; Prentice Hall.
 Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen,
Thomas et. al., The MIT press.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_theory
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_first_search
Working example for BFS

Everett

North Bend
Seattle

Centralia * Assume – edge value 1 for all

Olympia
Cases:

Spokane 1. Start with Everett

2. Start with Olympia
Portland

Data Structures in C++ using STL, William

Ford