7.6 Practice Problems
Let's dive into some practical problems that can help us understand these graph algorithms better.
Problem 1: DFS in Maze Solving
Let's start with an easy problem of solving a maze using DFS. In this problem, we are given a grid (2D array), and we have to find a path from the start position to the goal position. We can move up, down, left, and right, but not diagonally.
Here's a simple Python implementation using DFS:
You can test this with a simple maze (list of lists where 0 signifies a path and 1 is a wall).
Problem 2: Shortest Path in a Grid with BFS
A typical example of BFS is finding the shortest path in a grid (e.g., from the top-left corner to the bottom-right corner). This is because BFS is a level order traversal, and it visits all vertices at the same level before going deeper into the graph. Let's try to solve a problem using BFS. The problem statement is similar to the previous problem, but instead of DFS, we use BFS to find...