"Exploring Graphs with DFS and BFS"

📚🌃 Continuing my dive into data structures and algorithms. 🙂 🕸️ Tonight’s Focus: Chapter 20 – Graph Traversal (DFS & BFS) Unlike trees, graphs aren’t always hierarchical. They can be messy, interconnected, and unpredictable. So how do we explore them? With two trusty tools: Depth First 🐋 and Breadth First 🧭 Search ✅ FYI Graphs can represent anything from social networks to maps to recommendation systems We explore them to uncover all reachable nodes and understand their connections At the start, we only see one node. The rest are hidden until discovered ⚙️ Traversal Basics Each node goes through two phases Discovered Collection – Nodes are added here as soon as they’re found Explored Collection – Once all discovered neighbors of a node have been checked, the node moves here 🐋 Depth First Search (DFS) Uses a stack (Last In, First Out) Goes deep into one path before backtracking Newly discovered nodes are added to the beginning of the list Example path: A → B → C → E → F → G… 🧭 Breadth First Search (BFS) Uses a queue (First In, First Out) Explores level by level, checking all immediate neighbors before moving outward Newly discovered nodes are added to the end of the list Example path: A → B → C → D → E… ⚙️ Discovery Order DFS: Order depends on how neighbors are listed and pushed BFS: Order follows the queue. First discovered, first explored ⚡ Performance Time: O(n) Space: O(n) Same across best, average, and worst cases. Depends on graph size and structure 📚 These chapters are getting deeper. Might split them up going forward If you’re learning too (or just love emoji-powered breakdowns), follow along for more chapters in this series 🚀 #JavaScript #Algorithms #Coding #DevNotes

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