Which traversal method is more memory efficient for a sparse graph?

Practice Questions

Q1
Which traversal method is more memory efficient for a sparse graph?
  1. BFS
  2. DFS
  3. Both are equal
  4. Neither

Questions & Step-by-Step Solutions

Which traversal method is more memory efficient for a sparse graph?
  • Step 1: Understand what a sparse graph is. A sparse graph has very few edges compared to the number of vertices.
  • Step 2: Learn about the two traversal methods: Depth-First Search (DFS) and Breadth-First Search (BFS).
  • Step 3: Note that DFS uses a stack (or can use recursion) to keep track of nodes to visit next.
  • Step 4: Observe that BFS uses a queue to keep track of nodes to visit next.
  • Step 5: Realize that in a sparse graph, the number of edges is low, so the stack used by DFS will generally be smaller than the queue used by BFS.
  • Step 6: Conclude that DFS can be more memory efficient than BFS for sparse graphs because it requires less memory to store the nodes.
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