Performing Breadth First Search recursively

Question

Let\'s say you wanted to implement a breadth-first search of a binary tree recursively. How would you go about it?

Is it possible using only the call-stack

Answer 1

C# implementation of recursive breadth-first search algorithm for a binary tree.

Binary tree data visualization

IDictionary graph = new Dictionary {
    {"A", new [] {"B", "C"}},
    {"B", new [] {"D", "E"}},
    {"C", new [] {"F", "G"}},
    {"E", new [] {"H"}}
};

void Main()
{
    var pathFound = BreadthFirstSearch("A", "H", new string[0]);
    Console.WriteLine(pathFound); // [A, B, E, H]

    var pathNotFound = BreadthFirstSearch("A", "Z", new string[0]);
    Console.WriteLine(pathNotFound); // []
}

IEnumerable BreadthFirstSearch(string start, string end, IEnumerable path)
{
    if (start == end)
    {
        return path.Concat(new[] { end });
    }

    if (!graph.ContainsKey(start)) { return new string[0]; }    

    return graph[start].SelectMany(letter => BreadthFirstSearch(letter, end, path.Concat(new[] { start })));
}

If you want algorithm to work not only with binary-tree but with graphs what can have two and more nodes that points to same another node you must to avoid self-cycling by holding list of already visited nodes. Implementation may be looks like this.

Graph data visualization

IDictionary graph = new Dictionary {
    {"A", new [] {"B", "C"}},
    {"B", new [] {"D", "E"}},
    {"C", new [] {"F", "G", "E"}},
    {"E", new [] {"H"}}
};

void Main()
{
    var pathFound = BreadthFirstSearch("A", "H", new string[0], new List());
    Console.WriteLine(pathFound); // [A, B, E, H]

    var pathNotFound = BreadthFirstSearch("A", "Z", new string[0], new List());
    Console.WriteLine(pathNotFound); // []
}

IEnumerable BreadthFirstSearch(string start, string end, IEnumerable path, IList visited)
{
    if (start == end)
    {
        return path.Concat(new[] { end });
    }

    if (!graph.ContainsKey(start)) { return new string[0]; }


    return graph[start].Aggregate(new string[0], (acc, letter) =>
    {
        if (visited.Contains(letter))
        {
            return acc;
        }

        visited.Add(letter);

        var result = BreadthFirstSearch(letter, end, path.Concat(new[] { start }), visited);
        return acc.Concat(result).ToArray();
    });
}