Chapter 3

Graphs

Modified from
Slides by Kevin Wayne.
Copyright © 2005 Pearson-Addison Wesley.
All rights reserved.

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3.1 Basic Definitions and Applications
 Undirected Graphs

Undirected graph. G = (V, E)

V = nodes.
E = edges between pairs of nodes.
Captures pairwise relationship between objects.
Graph size parameters: n = |V|, m = |E|.

V = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 }
E = { 1-2, 1-3, 2-3, 2-4, 2-5, 3-5, 3-7, 3-8, 4-5, 5-6 }
n=8
m = 11

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 Some Graph Applications

Graph Nodes Edges

transportation street intersections highways
communication computers fiber optic cables
World Wide Web web pages hyperlinks
social people relationships
food web species predator-prey
software systems functions function calls
scheduling tasks precedence constraints
circuits gates wires

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 World Wide Web

Web graph.
Node: web page.
Edge: hyperlink from one page to another.

cnn.com

netscape.com novell.com cnnsi.com timewarner.com

hbo.com

sorpranos.com

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 Graph Representation: Adjacency Matrix

Adjacency matrix. n-by-n matrix with Auv = 1 if (u, v) is an edge.

Two representations of each edge.
Space proportional to n2.
Checking if (u, v) is an edge takes (1) time.
Identifying all edges takes (n2) time.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0
2 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0
3 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1
4 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0
5 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0
6 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
7 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1
8 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0

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 Graph Representation: Adjacency List

Adjacency list. Node indexed array of lists.

Two representations of each edge.
degree = number of neighbors of u
Space proportional to m + n.
Checking if (u, v) is an edge takes O(deg(u)) time.
Identifying all edges takes (m + n) time.

1 2 3

2 1 3 4 5

3 1 2 5 7 8

4 2 5

5 2 3 4 6

6 5

7 3 8

8 3 7

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 Paths and Connectivity

Def. A path in an undirected graph G = (V, E) is a sequence P of nodes

v1, v2, …, vk-1, vk with the property that each consecutive pair vi, vi+1 is
joined by an edge in E.

Def. A path is simple if all nodes are distinct.

Def. An undirected graph is connected if for every pair of nodes u and

v, there is a path between u and v.

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 Cycles

Def. A cycle is a path v1, v2, …, vk-1, vk in which v1 = vk, k > 2, and the
first k-1 nodes are all distinct.

cycle C = 1-2-4-5-3-1

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 Trees

Def. An undirected graph is a tree if it is connected and does not

contain a cycle.

Theorem. Let G be an undirected graph on n nodes. Any two of the

following statements imply the third.
 G is connected.
 G does not contain a cycle.
 G has n-1 edges.

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 Rooted Trees

Rooted tree. Given a tree T, choose a root node r and orient each edge
away from r.

Importance. Models hierarchical structure.

root r

parent of v

child of v

a tree the same tree, rooted at 1

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 Phylogeny Trees

Phylogeny trees. Describe evolutionary history of species.

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 GUI Containment Hierarchy

GUI containment hierarchy. Describe organization of GUI widgets.

Reference: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/overview/anatomy.html

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3.2 Graph Traversal
 Connectivity

s-t connectivity problem. Given two node s and t, is there a path

between s and t?

s-t shortest path problem. Given two node s and t, what is the length
of the shortest path between s and t?

Applications.
Social network
Fewest number of hops in a communication network
Navigation (shortest route)

Modified from slide by Kevin Wayne.

Copyright © 2005 Pearson-Addison Wesley.
All rights reserved.

16
 Breadth First Search

BFS intuition. Explore outward from s in all possible directions, adding

nodes one "layer" at a time.

s L1 L L
BFS algorithm. 2 n-1

L0 = { s }.
L1 = all neighbors of L0.
L2 = all nodes that do not belong to L0 or L1, and that have an edge
to a node in L1.
Li+1 = all nodes that do not belong to an earlier layer, and that have
an edge to a node in Li.

Theorem. For each i, Li consists of all nodes at distance exactly i

from s. There is a path from s to t iff t appears in some layer.

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Breadth First Search

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Breadth First Search

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 Breadth First Search

Property. Let T be a BFS tree of G = (V, E), and let (x, y) be an edge of
G. Then the level of x and y differ by at most 1.

L0

L1

L2

L3

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Breadth First Search - Analysis

O(1) O(V)
O(1)

O(V)
O(deg(v)
)

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Breadth First Search - Analysis

O(1) O(V)
O(1)

O(2E
)

Time Complexity: O(V) + O(2E)

O(V + 2E)
O(V + E)
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 Breadth First Search: Analysis

Theorem. The above implementation of BFS runs in O(m + n) time if

the graph is given by its adjacency list representation.

Pf.
 Easy to prove O(n2) running time:
– at most n lists L[i]
– each node occurs on at most one list; for loop runs  n times
– when we consider node u, there are  n incident edges (u, v),
and we spend O(1) processing each edge

 Actually runs in O(m + n) time:

– when we consider node u, there are deg(u) incident edges (u, v)
– total time processing edges is uV deg(u) = 2m ▪

each edge (u, v) is counted exactly twice

in sum: once in deg(u) and once in deg(v)

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 BFS Live Poll 1

• Consider a complete undirected graph

where each vertex is connected to every
other vertex. Which of the following
characterizes the time complexity if you
run BFS on such graph.

A. 𝑂(𝑉𝐸)
B. 𝑂(𝑉2)
C. 𝑂(𝐸2)
D. 𝑂(𝑉2 + 𝐸2)

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 BFS Live Poll 1

• Consider a complete undirected graph where each vertex is

connected to every other vertex. Which of the following
characterizes the time complexity if you run BFS on such graph.

A. O(VE)
B. O(V2)
C. O(E2)
D. O(V2 + E2)

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 Connected Component

Connected component. Find all nodes reachable from s.

Connected component containing node 1 = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 }.

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 Flood Fill

Flood fill. Given lime green pixel in an image, change color of entire
blob of neighboring lime pixels to blue.
 Node: pixel.
 Edge: two neighboring lime pixels.
 Blob: connected component of lime pixels.
recolor lime green blob to blue

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 Flood Fill

Flood fill. Given lime green pixel in an image, change color of entire
blob of neighboring lime pixels to blue.
 Node: pixel.
 Edge: two neighboring lime pixels.
 Blob: connected component of lime pixels.
recolor lime green blob to blue

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 Connected Component

Connected component. Find all nodes reachable from s.

R
s

u v

it's safe to add v

Theorem. Upon termination, R is the connected component containing s.

BFS = explore in order of distance from s.
DFS = explore in a different way.

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3.4 Testing Bipartiteness
 Bipartite Graphs

Def. An undirected graph G = (V, E) is bipartite if the nodes can be

colored red or blue such that every edge has one red and one blue end.

Applications.
Stable matching: courses = blues, TAs = red.
Scheduling: jobs = blue, machines = red

a bipartite graph

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 Testing Bipartiteness

Testing bipartiteness. Given a graph G, is it bipartite?

 Many graph problems become:
– easier if the underlying graph is bipartite (matching)
– tractable if the underlying graph is bipartite (independent set)
 Before attempting to design an algorithm, we need to understand
structure of bipartite graphs.

v2
v2 v3
v1
v4

v6 v5 v4 v3
v5

v6
v7 v1
v7

a bipartite graph G another drawing of G

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 An Obstruction to Bipartiteness

Lemma. If a graph G is bipartite, it cannot contain an odd length cycle.

Pf. Not possible to 2-color the odd cycle, let alone G.

bipartite not bipartite

(2-colorable) (not 2-colorable)

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 Bipartite Graphs

Lemma. Let G be a connected graph, and let L0, …, Lk be the layers

produced by BFS starting at node s. Exactly one of the following holds.
(i) No edge of G joins two nodes of the same layer, and G is bipartite.
(ii) An edge of G joins two nodes of the same layer, and G contains an
odd-length cycle (and hence is not bipartite).

L1 L2 L3 L1 L2 L3

Case (i) Case (ii)

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 Bipartite Graphs

Lemma. Let G be a connected graph, and let L0, …, Lk be the layers

produced by BFS starting at node s. Exactly one of the following holds.
(i) No edge of G joins two nodes of the same layer, and G is bipartite.
(ii) An edge of G joins two nodes of the same layer, and G contains an
odd-length cycle (and hence is not bipartite).

Pf. (i)
 Suppose no edge joins two nodes in adjacent layers.
 By previous lemma, this implies all edges join nodes on same level.
 Bipartition: red = nodes on odd levels, blue = nodes on even levels.

L1 L2 L3

Case (i)
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 Bipartite Graphs

Lemma. Let G be a connected graph, and let L0, …, Lk be the layers

produced by BFS starting at node s. Exactly one of the following holds.
(i) No edge of G joins two nodes of the same layer, and G is bipartite.
(ii) An edge of G joins two nodes of the same layer, and G contains an
odd-length cycle (and hence is not bipartite).

Pf. (ii)
 Suppose (x, y) is an edge with x, y in same level Lj.
 Let z = lca(x, y) = lowest common ancestor. z = lca(x, y)
 Let Li be level containing z.
 Consider cycle that takes edge from x to y,
then path from y to z, then path from z to x.
 Its length is 1 + (j-i) + (j-i), which is odd. ▪

(x, y) path from path from

y to z z to x

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 Obstruction to Bipartiteness

Corollary. A graph G is bipartite iff it contain no odd length cycle.

5-cycle C

bipartite not bipartite

(2-colorable) (not 2-colorable)

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3.5 Connectivity in Directed Graphs
 Directed Graphs

Directed graph. G = (V, E)

 Edge (u, v) goes from node u to node v.

Ex. Web graph - hyperlink points from one web page to another.
 Directedness of graph is crucial.
 Modern web search engines exploit hyperlink structure to rank web
pages by importance.

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 Graph Search

Directed reachability. Given a node s, find all nodes reachable from s.

Directed s-t shortest path problem. Given two node s and t, what is
the length of the shortest path between s and t?

Graph search. BFS extends naturally to directed graphs.

Web crawler. Start from web page s. Find all web pages linked from s,
either directly or indirectly.

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 Strong Connectivity

Def. Node u and v are mutually reachable if there is a path from u to v

and also a path from v to u.

Def. A graph is strongly connected if every pair of nodes is mutually

reachable.

Lemma. Let s be any node. G is strongly connected iff every node is

reachable from s, and s is reachable from every node.

Pf.  Follows from definition.

Pf.  Path from u to v: concatenate u-s path with s-v path.
Path from v to u: concatenate v-s path with s-u path. ▪

ok if paths overlap

s u

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 Strong Connectivity: Algorithm

Theorem. Can determine if G is strongly connected in O(m + n) time.

Pf.
 Pick any node s.
 Run BFS from s in G. reverse orientation of every edge in G

 Run BFS from s in Grev.

 Return true iff all nodes reached in both BFS executions.
 Correctness follows immediately from previous lemma. ▪

strongly connected not strongly connected

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3.6 DAGs and Topological Ordering
 Directed Acyclic Graphs

Def. An DAG is a directed graph that contains no directed cycles.

Ex. Precedence constraints: edge (vi, vj) means vi must precede vj.

Def. A topological order of a directed graph G = (V, E) is an ordering

of its nodes as v1, v2, …, vn so that for every edge (vi, vj) we have i < j.

v2 v3

v6 v5 v4 v1 v2 v3 v4 v5 v6 v7

v7 v1

a DAG a topological ordering

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 Precedence Constraints

Precedence constraints. Edge (vi, vj) means task vi must occur before vj.

Applications.
Course prerequisite graph: course vi must be taken before vj.
Compilation: module vi must be compiled before vj. Pipeline of
computing jobs: output of job vi needed to determine input of job vj.

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 Directed Acyclic Graphs

Lemma. If G has a topological order, then G is a DAG.

Pf. (by contradiction)

 Suppose that G has a topological order v1, …, vn and that G also has a
directed cycle C. Let's see what happens.
 Let vi be the lowest-indexed node in C, and let vj be the node just
before vi; thus (vj, vi) is an edge.
 By our choice of i, we have i < j.
 On the other hand, since (vj, vi) is an edge and v1, …, vn is a
topological order, we must have j < i, a contradiction. ▪

the directed cycle C

v1 vi vj vn

the supposed topological order: v1, …, vn

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 Directed Acyclic Graphs

Lemma. If G has a topological order, then G is a DAG.

Q. Does every DAG have a topological ordering?

Q. If so, how do we compute one?

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 Directed Acyclic Graphs

Lemma. If G is a DAG, then G has a node with no incoming edges.

Pf. (by contradiction)

 Suppose that G is a DAG and every node has at least one incoming
edge. Let's see what happens.
 Pick any node v, and begin following edges backward from v. Since v
has at least one incoming edge (u, v) we can walk backward to u.
 Then, since u has at least one incoming edge (x, u), we can walk
backward to x.
 Repeat until we visit a node, say w, twice.
 Let C denote the sequence of nodes encountered between
successive visits to w. C is a cycle. ▪

w x u v

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 Directed Acyclic Graphs

Lemma. If G is a DAG, then G has a topological ordering.

Pf. (by induction on n)

 Base case: true if n = 1.
 Given DAG on n > 1 nodes, find a node v with no incoming edges.
 G - { v } is a DAG, since deleting v cannot create cycles.
 By inductive hypothesis, G - { v } has a topological ordering.
 Place v first in topological ordering; then append nodes of G - { v }
 in topological order. This is valid since v has no incoming edges. ▪

DAG

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 Topological Sorting Algorithm: Running Time

Theorem. Algorithm finds a topological order in O(m + n) time.

Pf.
 Maintain the following information:
– count[w] = remaining number of incoming edges

– S = set of remaining nodes with no incoming edges

 Initialization: O(m + n) via single scan through graph.
 Update: to delete v
– remove v from S
– decrement count[w] for all edges from v to w, and add w to S if c
count[w] hits 0
– this is O(1) per edge ▪

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