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An algorithm is fundamentally a set of rules or defined procedures that is typically designed and used to solve a specific problem or a broad set of problems.. Broadly, algorithms define process(es), sets of rules, or methodologies that are to be followed in calculations, data processing, data mining, pattern recognition, automated reasoning or other problem-solving operations.
For examples of this specification-method applied to the addition algorithm "m+n" see Algorithm examples. Sipser begins by defining '"algorithm" as follows: "Informally speaking, an algorithm is a collection of simple instructions for carrying out some task.
Merge sorting is an example of divide and conquer, where an unordered list can be divided into segments containing one item and sorting of the entire list can be obtained by merging the segments. A simpler variant of divide and conquer is called a decrease-and-conquer algorithm , which solves one smaller instance of itself, and uses the ...
Since algorithms are platform-independent (i.e. a given algorithm can be implemented in an arbitrary programming language on an arbitrary computer running an arbitrary operating system), there are additional significant drawbacks to using an empirical approach to gauge the comparative performance of a given set of algorithms. Take as an example ...
In computer science, an enumeration algorithm is an algorithm that enumerates the answers to a computational problem. Formally, such an algorithm applies to problems that take an input and produce a list of solutions, similarly to function problems. For each input, the enumeration algorithm must produce the list of all solutions, without ...
Some languages may allow list types to be indexed or sliced like array types, in which case the data type is more accurately described as an array. In type theory and functional programming, abstract lists are usually defined inductively by two operations: nil that yields the empty list, and cons, which adds an item at the beginning of a list. [1]
A stack (LIFO queue) will yield a depth-first algorithm. A best-first branch and bound algorithm can be obtained by using a priority queue that sorts nodes on their lower bound. [3] Examples of best-first search algorithms with this premise are Dijkstra's algorithm and its descendant A* search. The depth-first variant is recommended when no ...
A sorting algorithm is stable if whenever there are two records R and S with the same key, and R appears before S in the original list, then R will always appear before S in the sorted list. When equal elements are indistinguishable, such as with integers, or more generally, any data where the entire element is the key, stability is not an issue.