Subj : Re: Implementing A* algorithm
To   : comp.programming
From : Gerry Quinn
Date : Mon Jul 18 2005 01:25 pm

In article <42db816d$0$782$3a628fcd@reader20.nntp.hccnet.nl>, Huub 
<hdotvdotniekerkathccnetdotnl> says...
> Hi,
> 
> I'm not a real good programmer, and I have a route problem. I have a 
> robot that has to find the shortest route through a maze. Options for 
> doing this are either the A* or Dijkstra's algorithm. My maze consists 
> of 15 nodes, with each node only connected to at least 1 of it's direct 
> neighbours. All distances between the nodes are the same. Since 
> wikipedia tells me that A* is faster than Dijkstra, I would like to know 
> how the weights work out for either a linked list or an array?

A* is faster than Dijkstra only when the overhead of the more 
complicated calculation is balanced out by the usefulness of the 
distance heuristic.

For 15 nodes, both should take about a microsecond, so it doesn't 
matter which you use.

By 'weights', I can only assume you mean the length of each route.  In 
you case you can take this as unity since all distances are the same.

- Gerry Quinn

.