Graph Theory,

DFS & BFS

Kelly Choi
08-07-2006
 What is a graph?
• A set of vertices and edges
– Directed/Undirected
– Weighted/Unweighted
– Cyclic/Acyclic
vertex

edge

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 Representation of Graphs
• Adjacency Matrix
– A V x V array, with matrix[i][j] storing
whether there is an edge between the ith
vertex and the jth vertex
• Adjacency Linked List
– One linked list per vertex, each storing
directly reachable vertices
• Edge List

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 Representation of Graphs
Adjacency Adjacency Edge List
Matrix Linked List
Memory O(V2) O(V+E) O(V+E)
Storage
Check O(1) O(deg(u)) O(deg(u))
whether
(u,v) is an
edge
Find all O(V) O(deg(u)) O(deg(u))
adjacent
vertices of a
vertex u
deg(u): the number of edges connecting vertex u
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 Graph Searching
• Why do we do graph searching?
What do we search for?
• What information can we find from
graph searching?
• How do we search the graph? Do we
need to visit all vertices? In what
order?

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 Depth-First Search (DFS)
• Strategy: Go as far as you can (if
you have not visit there), otherwise,
go back and try another way

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 Implementation
DFS (vertex u) {
mark u as visited
for each vertex v directly reachable from u
if v is unvisited
DFS (v)
}

• Initially all vertices are marked as

unvisited
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 Topological Sort
• Topological order:
A numbering of the vertices of a
directed acyclic graph such that
every edge from a vertex numbered i
to a vertex numbered j satisfies i<j
• Topological Sort:
Finding the topological order of a
directed acyclic graph

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Example: Teacher’s Problem
• Emily wants to distribute candies to
N students one by one, with a rule
that if student A is teased by B, A
can receive candy before B.
• Given lists of students teased by
each students, find a possible
sequence to give the candies

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 Shortest Paths?
• Given vertices s and t, if we try to
find a path from s to t by DFS, the
first path found may not be the
shortest one.
• How can I find a shortest path?

• Let’s first review what we have done

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 An Idea of What We Did
1. Start by visiting a certain vertex
2. Vertices fall into 3 categories:
– Unvisited
– Visited
– Visited & Dead (All reachable vertices
from these vertices are visited)

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 An Idea of What We Did
3. Find unvisited vertices by
expanding your path from visited
(but not dead) vertices.

• In DFS, we choose the most

recently visited vertex to expand.
• Are there any other strategies?

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 Breadth-First Search (BFS)
• Instead of going as far as possible,
BFS tries to search all paths.
• BFS makes use of a queue to store
visited (but not dead) vertices,
expanding the path from the earliest
visited vertices.

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 Simulation of BFS
• Queue: 1 4 3 5 2 6

1 3 6

2
5

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 Implementation
while queue Q not empty
dequeue the first vertex u from Q
for each vertex v directly reachable from u
if v is unvisited
enqueue v to Q
mark v as visited

• Initially all vertices except the start

vertex are marked as unvisited and
the queue contains the start vertex
only
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 There is more…
• Other Graph Searching Algorithms:
– Bidirectional search (BDS)
– Iterative deepening search (IDS)

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 Advantages
• Guarantee shortest paths for
unweighted graphs
• Use queue instead of recursive
functions – Avoiding stack overflow

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 Flood Fill
• An algorithm that determines the
area connected to a given node in a
multi-dimensional array
• Start BFS/DFS from the given node,
counting the total number of nodes
visited
• Example: Squareland (HKOI 2006)

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 Graph Modeling
• Conversion of a problem into a graph
problem
• Essential in solving most graph
problems

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 Basics of graph modeling
• Identify the vertices and the edges
• Identify the objective of the problem
• State the objective in graph terms
• Implementation:
– construct the graph from the input instance
– run the suitable graph algorithms on the graph
– convert the output to the required format

(cx, 2004)

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 Other Topics in Graph
Theory
• Cut Vertices & Cut Edges
• Euler Path/Circuit & Hamilton
Path/Circuit
• Planarity

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 Cut Vertices & Cut Edges
• What is a cut vertex?
– A cut vertex is a type of graph vertex,
the removal of which causes an increase
in the number of connected components
• What is a cut edge?

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 Euler Path & Hamilton Path
• An Euler path is a path in a graph
which visits each edge exactly once
• A Hamilton path is a path in an
undirected graph which visits each
vertex exactly once.

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 Planarity
• A planar graph is a graph that can be
drawn so that no edges intersect
• K5 and K3,3 are non-planar graphs

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