Formal Definition
Formally, DFS is an uninformed search that progresses by expanding the first child node of the search tree that appears and thus going deeper and deeper until a goal node is found, or until it hits a node that has no children. Then the search backtracks, returning to the most recent node it hasn't finished exploring. In a non-recursive implementation, all freshly expanded nodes are added to a stack for exploration.
Read more about this topic: Depth-first Search
Famous quotes containing the words formal and/or definition:
“Two clergymen disputing whether ordination would be valid without the imposition of both hands, the more formal one said, “Do you think the Holy Dove could fly down with only one wing?””
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“The definition of good prose is proper words in their proper places; of good verse, the most proper words in their proper places. The propriety is in either case relative. The words in prose ought to express the intended meaning, and no more; if they attract attention to themselves, it is, in general, a fault.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)