Can someone explain in simple terms to me what a directed acyclic graph is?

Question

Can someone explain in simple terms to me what a directed acyclic graph is? I have looked on Wikipedia but it doesn\'t really make me see its use in programming.

Answer 1

graph = structure consisting of nodes, that are connected to each other with edges

directed = the connections between the nodes (edges) have a direction: A -> B is not the same as B -> A

acyclic = "non-circular" = moving from node to node by following the edges, you will never encounter the same node for the second time.

A good example of a directed acyclic graph is a tree. Note, however, that not all directed acyclic graphs are trees.