In Dijkstra's algorithm, what data structure is commonly used to select the next
Practice Questions
Q1
In Dijkstra's algorithm, what data structure is commonly used to select the next node to process?
Stack
Queue
Priority Queue
Array
Questions & Step-by-Step Solutions
In Dijkstra's algorithm, what data structure is commonly used to select the next node to process?
Step 1: Understand that Dijkstra's algorithm is used to find the shortest path in a graph.
Step 2: Recognize that each node in the graph has a 'tentative distance' which represents the shortest known distance from the starting node.
Step 3: To find the next node to process, we need to select the node with the smallest tentative distance.
Step 4: A priority queue is a special data structure that allows us to efficiently retrieve the node with the smallest value (in this case, the smallest tentative distance).
Step 5: In Dijkstra's algorithm, we use the priority queue to keep track of all the nodes and their tentative distances, so we can quickly find and process the next node.
