Book Image

Beginning Java Data Structures and Algorithms

By : James Cutajar
Book Image

Beginning Java Data Structures and Algorithms

By: James Cutajar

Overview of this book

Learning about data structures and algorithms gives you a better insight on how to solve common programming problems. Most of the problems faced everyday by programmers have been solved, tried, and tested. By knowing how these solutions work, you can ensure that you choose the right tool when you face these problems. This book teaches you tools that you can use to build efficient applications. It starts with an introduction to algorithms and big O notation, later explains bubble, merge, quicksort, and other popular programming patterns. You’ll also learn about data structures such as binary trees, hash tables, and graphs. The book progresses to advanced concepts, such as algorithm design paradigms and graph theory. By the end of the book, you will know how to correctly implement common algorithms and data structures within your applications.
Table of Contents (8 chapters)

Other Concepts in Graphs


In this chapter, we covered ways of representing and traversing a graph and looked at shortest path algorithms. Graphs are also an optimal data structure for some problems we haven't mentioned yet. This section aims to introduce some of them.

Minimum Spanning Trees

A minimum spanning tree of a graph is a subset of the set of edges E of a connected graph that connects all vertices together, without any cycles and with the minimum total edge weight. It is a tree because every two vertices in it are connected by exactly one path.

In order to understand the applicability of minimum spanning trees, consider the problem of a telecommunications company that is moving into a new neighborhood. The company wants to connect all the houses, but also wants to minimize the length of cable that it uses in order to cut costs. One way to solve the problem is by computing the minimum spanning tree of a graph whose vertices are the houses of the neighborhood, and the edges between houses...