Single Source Shortest Path

(Dijkstra’s Algorithm)
 Shortest Path Problems
• What is shortest path ?
 shortest length between two vertices for an
unweighted graph:
 smallest cost between two vertices for a weighted
graph:
B 210 B

A A
450
60 190

C unweighted C weighted
graph graph
200 130
D D
E E
 Shortest Path Problems
• How can we find the shortest route between two
points on a map?
• Model the problem as a graph problem:
– Road map is a weighted graph:
vertices = cities
edges = road segments between cities
edge weights = road distances
– Goal: find a shortest path between two vertices (cities)

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 Shortest Path Problems
• Input: t x
6
3 9
– Directed graph G = (V, E) 3
4
2 1
– Weight function w : E → R s 0
2 7
5 3
• Weight of path p = v0, v1, . . . , vk 5 11
k 6
w( p )  w( vi  1 , vi ) y z
i 1

• Shortest-path weight from u to v:

p
δ(u, v) = min w(p) : u v if there exists a path from u to v

∞ otherwise
• Shortest path u to v is any path p such that w(p) = δ(u, v)
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 Variants of Shortest Paths
• Single-source shortest path
– G = (V, E)  find a shortest path from a given source vertex s to
each vertex v  V
• Single-destination shortest path
– Find a shortest path to a given destination vertex t from each
vertex v
– Reverse the direction of each edge  single-source
• Single-pair shortest path
– Find a shortest path from u to v for given vertices u and v
– Solve the single-source problem
• All-pairs shortest-paths
– Find a shortest path from u to v for every pair of vertices u and v

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Optimal Substructure of Shortest Paths

Given: vj
pij pjk
– A weighted, directed graph G = (V, E) v1
p1i
– A weight function w: E  R, pij’ vk

– A shortest path p = v1, v2, . . . , vk from v1 to vk vi

– A subpath of p: pij = vi, vi+1, . . . , vj, with 1  i  j  k

Then: pij is a shortest path from vi to vj

p1i pij pjk
Proof: p = v1 vi vj vk

w(p) = w(p1i) + w(pij) + w(pjk)

Assume  pij’ from vi to vj with w(pij’) < w(pij)

 w(p’) = w(p1i) + w(pij’) + w(pjk) < w(p) contradiction! 6
 Shortest-Path Representation
For each vertex v  V:
t x
• d[v] = δ(s, v): a shortest-path estimate 3
6
9
3
– Initially, d[v]=∞ 4
2 1
s 0
– Reduces as algorithms progress 2 7
5 3
 [v] = predecessor of v on a shortest 5 11
6
path from s y z

– If no predecessor, [v] = NIL

  induces a tree—shortest-path tree
• Shortest paths & shortest path trees are
not unique
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 Initialization
Alg.: INITIALIZE-SINGLE-SOURCE(V, s)
1. for each v  V
2. do d[v] ← 
3. [v] ← NIL
4. d[s] ← 0

• All the shortest-paths algorithms start with

INITIALIZE-SINGLE-SOURCE

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 Relaxation
• Relaxing an edge (u, v) = testing whether we
can improve the shortest path to v found so far
by going through u
If d[v] > d[u] + w(u, v)
we can improve the shortest path to v
 update d[v] and [v]
s s
u v u v
5
2
9
2 After relaxation:
5 6
d[v]  d[u] +
RELAX(u, v, w) RELAX(u, v,w(u,
w) v)
u v u v
2 2
5 7 5 6
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 RELAX(u, v, w)
1. if d[v] > d[u] + w(u, v)
2. then d[v] ← d[u] + w(u, v)
3. [v] ← u

• All the single-source shortest-paths algorithms

– start by calling INIT-SINGLE-SOURCE
– then relax edges
• The algorithms differ in the order and how
many times they relax each edge

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 Dijkstra’s Algorithm
• Single-source shortest path problem:
– No negative-weight edges: w(u, v) > 0  (u, v)  E

• Maintains two sets of vertices:

– S = vertices whose final shortest-path weights have
already been determined
– Q = vertices in V – S: min-priority queue
• Keys in Q are estimates of shortest-path weights (d[v])

• Repeatedly select a vertex u  V – S, with the

minimum shortest-path estimate d[v]
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 Dijkstra (G, w, s)
t 1 x
1. INITIALIZE-SINGLE-SOURCE(V, s)  
10 9
2. S ←  s 0
2 3 4 6

3. Q ← V[G] 5 7
 
2
4. while Q   y z
t 1 x
5. do u ← EXTRACT-MIN(Q) 
10 
10 9
6. S ← S  {u} 2 3 4 6
s 0
7. for each vertex v  Adj[u] 5 7

5 
8. do RELAX(u, v, w) y
2
z

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 Example
t 1 x t 1 x
8
10 14
 8 13
14
10 9 10 9
2 3 4 6 2 3 4 6
s 0 s 0
5 7 5 7
5 7
 5 7
2 2
y z y z

t x t 1 x
1
8 13
9 8 9
10 9 10 9

2 4 2 3 4 6
s 0 3 6 s 0

7 5 7
5
5 7 5 7
2 2
y z y z
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 Dijkstra’s Pseudo Code
• Graph G, weight function w, root s

relaxing
edges
 Dijkstra (G, w, s)
1. INITIALIZE-SINGLE-SOURCE(V, s) (V)
2. S ← 
3. Q ← V[G] O(V) build min-heap

4. while Q   Executed O(V) times

5. do u ← EXTRACT-MIN(Q) O(lgV)

6. S ← S  {u}
7. for each vertex v  Adj[u]
8. do RELAX(u, v, w) O(E) times; O(lgV)

Running time: O(VlgV + ElgV) = O(ElgV)

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 Dijkstra’s Running Time

• Extract-Min executed |V| time

• Decrease-Key executed |E| time
• Time = |V| TExtract-Min + |E| TDecrease-Key
• T depends on different Q implementations

Q T(Extract T(Decrease- Total

-Min) Key)
array (V) (1) (V 2)
binary heap (lg V) (lg V) (E lg V)
Fibonacci heap (lg V) (1) (amort.) (V lgV + E)
 Question
• Prove that, if there exists negative edge, dijkstra’s
shortest path algorithm may fail to find the shortest path
• Print the shortest path for dijkstra’s algorithm
• How many shortest paths are there from source to
destination?
• Suppose you are given a graph where each edge
represents the path cost and each vertex has also a cost
which represents that, if you select a path using this
node, the cost will be added with the path cost. How can
it be solved using Dijkstra’s algorithm?

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 Question
• How to solve ACM534 – Frogger?

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