A* (pronounced "A-star") is a graph traversal and path search algorithm, which is used in many fields of computer science due to its completeness, optimality, and optimal efficiency. One major practical drawback is its O(b^d) space complexity, as it stores all generated nodes in memory. Thus, in practical travel-routing systems, it is generally outperformed by algorithms that can pre-process the graph to attain better performance, as well as memory-bounded approaches; however, A* is still the best solution in many cases.
Here is the pseudocode for the A* algorithm:
function reconstruct_path(cameFrom, current)
total_path := {current}
while current in cameFrom.Keys:
current := cameFrom[current]
total_path.prepend(current)
return total_path
// A* finds a path from start to goal.
// h is the heuristic function. h(n) estimates the cost to reach goal from node n.
function A_Star(start, goal, h)
// The set of discovered nodes that may need to be (re-)expanded.
// Initially, only the start node is known.
// This is usually implemented as a min-heap or priority queue rather than a hash-set.
openSet := {start}
// For node n, cameFrom[n] is the node immediately preceding it on the cheapest path from the start
// to n currently known.
cameFrom := an empty map
// For node n, gScore[n] is the cost of the cheapest path from start to n currently known.
gScore := map with default value of Infinity
gScore[start] := 0
// For node n, fScore[n] := gScore[n] + h(n). fScore[n] represents our current best guess as to
// how cheap a path could be from start to finish if it goes through n.
fScore := map with default value of Infinity
fScore[start] := h(start)
while openSet is not empty
// This operation can occur in O(Log(N)) time if openSet is a min-heap or a priority queue
current := the node in openSet having the lowest fScore[] value
if current = goal
return reconstruct_path(cameFrom, current)
openSet.Remove(current)
for each neighbor of current
// d(current,neighbor) is the weight of the edge from current to neighbor
// tentative_gScore is the distance from start to the neighbor through current
tentative_gScore := gScore[current] + d(current, neighbor)
if tentative_gScore < gScore[neighbor]
// This path to neighbor is better than any previous one. Record it!
cameFrom[neighbor] := current
gScore[neighbor] := tentative_gScore
fScore[neighbor] := tentative_gScore + h(neighbor)
if neighbor not in openSet
openSet.add(neighbor)
// Open set is empty but goal was never reached
return failure