7.3 Breadth-First Search
Breadth-First Search (BFS) is a graph traversal algorithm that visits nodes in a level-wise manner, starting from the root node and moving outwards. This means that it visits all the nodes closest to the root first before moving on to the next level. BFS is an efficient algorithm for finding the shortest path between two nodes in a graph or tree.
It does this by exploring all possible paths from the starting node to the ending node, ensuring that it finds the shortest path. Moreover, BFS is not only used for finding shortest paths but also for binary tree traversals. It is particularly useful for searching for the closest neighbors of a particular node in a graph or tree, as it visits the nodes in a level-wise order, ensuring that the closest neighbors are visited first.
Therefore, BFS is an essential algorithm in computer science and is widely used in various applications, such as network routing, data mining, and image processing.
Here's how the BFS...