Bellman Ford Algorithm and Dijkstras

[holtie388]

Hey guys,

hopefully this is the right place, but can anybody please simply explain these two algorithms? or provide a viable source to which i can read about them.

Thanks,

Josh.

[Richard Burts · Accepted solution]

Josh

Here is a link discussing Bellman Ford

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellman%E2%80%93Ford_algorithm

and here is another

http://compprog.wordpress.com/2007/11/29/one-source-shortest-path-the-bellman-ford-algorithm/

For Dijkstra you can read this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dijkstra%27s_algorithm

or this

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~jmor159/PLDS210/dijkstra.html

HTH

Rick

[gornication]

Why do we choose Bellman-Ford algorithm for RIP? Could we use Dijkstra's algorithm to calculate the tree no further than its neighbors?

[Richard Burts]

I am not authoritative on this topic (and if someone who is expert will jump in that would be appreciated) but I wonder if the choice is based on Bellman Ford ability to handle situations where some of the edge weights are negative numbers (which Dijkstra does not do). See this article for further discussion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellman–Ford_algorithm