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The Algorithm Design Manual
Second Edition
Steven S. Skiena
The Algorithm Design Manual
Second Edition
123
Steven S. Skiena
Department of Computer Science
State University of New York
at Stony Brook
New York, USA
skiena@cs.sunysb.edu
ISBN: 978-1-84800-069-8
e-ISBN: 978-1-84800-070-4
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-84800-070-4
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008931136
Springer-Verlag London Limited 2008
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted
under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or trans-
mitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of
reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licenses issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
The use of registered names, trademarks, etc., in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a
specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information
contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that
may be made.
Printed on acid-free paper
Springer Science+Business Media
springer.com
c
Preface
Most professional programmers that I’ve encountered are not well prepared to
tackle algorithm design problems. This is a pity, because the techniques of algorithm
design form one of the core practical technologies of computer science. Designing
correct, ecient, and implementable algorithms for real-world problems requires
access to two distinct bodies of knowledge:
•
Techniques – Good algorithm designers understand several fundamental al-
gorithm design techniques, including data structures, dynamic programming,
depth-first search, backtracking, and heuristics. Perhaps the single most im-
portant design technique is modeling , the art of abstracting a messy real-world
application into a clean problem suitable for algorithmic attack.
•
Resources – Good algorithm designers stand on the shoulders of giants.
Rather than laboring from scratch to produce a new algorithm for every task,
they can figure out what is known about a particular problem. Rather than
re-implementing popular algorithms from scratch, they seek existing imple-
mentations to serve as a starting point. They are familiar with many classic
algorithmic problems, which provide sucient source material to model most
any application.
This book is intended as a manual on algorithm design, providing access to
combinatorial algorithm technology for both students and computer professionals.
It is divided into two parts: Techniques and Resources . The former is a general
guide to techniques for the design and analysis of computer algorithms. The Re-
sources section is intended for browsing and reference, and comprises the catalog
of algorithmic resources, implementations, and an extensive bibliography.
vi
PREFACE
To the Reader
I have been gratified by the warm reception the first edition of The Algorithm De-
sign Manual has received since its initial publication in 1997. It has been recognized
as a unique guide to using algorithmic techniques to solve problems that often arise
in practice. But much has changed in the world since the The Algorithm Design
Manual was first published over ten years ago. Indeed, if we date the origins of
modern algorithm design and analysis to about 1970, then roughly 30% of modern
algorithmic history has happened since the first coming of The Algorithm Design
Manual .
Three aspects of The Algorithm Design Manual have been particularly beloved:
(1) the catalog of algorithmic problems, (2) the war stories, and (3) the electronic
component of the book. These features have been preserved and strengthened in
this edition:
•
The Catalog of Algorithmic Problems – Since finding out what is known about
an algorithmic problem can be a dicult task, I provide a catalog of the
75 most important problems arising in practice. By browsing through this
catalog, the student or practitioner can quickly identify what their problem is
called, what is known about it, and how they should proceed to solve it. To aid
in problem identification, we include a pair of “before” and “after” pictures for
each problem, illustrating the required input and output specifications. One
perceptive reviewer called my book “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Algorithms”
on the strength of this catalog.
The catalog is the most important part of this book. To update the catalog
for this edition, I have solicited feedback from the world’s leading experts on
each associated problem. Particular attention has been paid to updating the
discussion of available software implementations for each problem.
•
War Stories – In practice, algorithm problems do not arise at the beginning of
a large project. Rather, they typically arise as subproblems when it becomes
clear that the programmer does not know how to proceed or that the current
solution is inadequate.
To provide a better perspective on how algorithm problems arise in the real
world, we include a collection of “war stories,” or tales from our experience
with real problems. The moral of these stories is that algorithm design and
analysis is not just theory, but an important tool to be pulled out and used
as needed.
This edition retains all the original war stories (with updates as appropriate)
plus additional new war stories covering external sorting, graph algorithms,
simulated annealing, and other topics.
•
Electronic Component – Since the practical person is usually looking for a
program more than an algorithm, we provide pointers to solid implementa-
tions whenever they are available. We have collected these implementations

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