Graphs
Depth-First Search (Recursive)
Visit a start vertex, then recurse into its first unvisited neighbour all
the way down before backtracking. A visited set prevents revisiting, and
neighbour insertion order fixes the visit sequence.
Algorithm
On the canonical 6-vertex graph from graph-adjacency-list, starting at
vertex 1, the deterministic visit order is [1, 2, 4, 3, 5, 6]. Calls
unwind 6 -> 5 -> 4 -> 3 -> 2 -> 1 after all vertices are visited.
recursive descent
Follow one branch to its end, then unwind and try the next neighbour.
Visual walkthrough
Basic Implementation
basic.swift
var adj: [Int: [Int]] = [:]
adj[1] = [2, 3]
adj[2] = [1, 4]
adj[3] = [1, 4]
adj[4] = [2, 3, 5]
adj[5] = [4, 6]
adj[6] = [5]
var visited: Set<Int> = []
var order: [Int] = []
func dfs(_ v: Int) {
visited.insert(v)
order.append(v)
for nb in adj[v]! {
if !visited.contains(nb) {
dfs(nb)
}
}
}
dfs(1)
print(order)
Complexity
- Time: O(V + E)
- Space: O(V) recursion depth
Implementation notes
- Swift: a recursive
dfsfunction captures the globalvisitedset andorderarray;printrenders the array. - The replay shows the current vertex, the visited set, and the running visit order after each entry, matching the lesson spec.