The leading introduction to computer algorithms in use today, including fifty algorithms every programmer should know

Princeton Computer Science professors, Robert Sedgewick and Kevin Wayne, survey the most important computer algorithms in use and of interest to anyone working in science, mathematics, and engineering, and those who use computation in the liberal arts. They provide a full treatment of data structures and algorithms for key areas that enable you to confidently implement, debug, and put them to work in any computational environment.

Fundamentals:

• Basic programming models
• Data abstraction
• Bags, queues, and stacks
• Analysis of algorithms

Sorting

• Elementary sorts
• Mergesort
• Quicksort
• Priority queues
• Applications

Graphs

• Undirected graphs
• Directed graphs
• Minimum spanning trees
• Shortest paths

Strings

• String sorts
• Tries
• Substring search
• Regular expressions
• Data compression

These algorithms are generally ingenious creations that, remarkably, can each be expressed in just a dozen or two lines of code. As a group, they represent problem-solving power of amazing scope. They have enabled the construction of computational artifacts, the solution of scientific problems, and the development of commercial applications that would not have been feasible without them.

Robert Sedgewick has been a Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University since 1985, where he was the founding Chairman of the Department of Computer Science. He has held visiting research positions at Xerox PARC, Institute for Defense Analyses, and INRIA, and is member of the board of directors of Adobe Systems. Professor Sedgewick's research interests include analytic combinatorics, design and analysis of data structures and algorithms, and program visualization. His landmark book, Algorithms, now in its fourth edition, has appeared in numerous versions and languages over the past thirty years. In addition, with Kevin Wayne, he is the coauthor of the highly acclaimed textbook, Introduction to Programming in Java: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Addison-Wesley, 2008).

Kevin Wayne is the Phillip Y. Goldman Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at Princeton University, where he has been teaching since 1998. He received a Ph.D. in operations research and industrial engineering from Cornell University. His research interests include the design, analysis, and implementation of algorithms, especially for graphs and discrete optimization. With Robert Sedgewick, he is the coauthor of the highly acclaimed textbook, Introduction to Programming in Java: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Addison-Wesley, 2008).

Preface viii

Chapter 1: Fundamentals 3

1.1 Basic Programming Model 8

1.2 Data Abstraction 64

1.3 Bags, Queues, and Stacks 120

1.4 Analysis of Algorithms 172

1.5 Case Study: Union-Find 216

Chapter 2: Sorting 243

2.1 Elementary Sorts 244

2.2 Mergesort 270

2.3 Quicksort 288

2.4 Priority Queues 308

2.5 Applications 336

Chapter 3: Searching 361

3.1 Symbol Tables 362

3.2 Binary Search Trees 396

3.3 Balanced Search Trees 424

3.4 Hash Tables 458

3.5 Applications 486

Chapter 4: Graphs 515

4.1 Undirected Graphs 518

4.2 Directed Graphs 566

4.3 Minimum Spanning Trees 604

4.4 Shortest Paths 638

Chapter 5: Strings 695

5.1 String Sorts 702

5.2 Tries 730

5.3 Substring Search 758

5.4 Regular Expressions 788

5.5 Data Compression 810

Chapter 6: Context 853

Index 933

List of Algorithms 954

List of Clients 955