Assignment Content

Objective: In this project, you will explore the Shortest Path problem and implement two popular algorithms to solve it: Depth$-$First Search $($DFS$)$ and Breadth$-$First Search $($BFS$).$ You will work in groups of $4$ to design, develop, and present a complete solution to finding the shortest path between two cities in a given network.

Data Structures:

Graph: You will need to implement an appropriate data structure to represent the network of cities. This could be an adjacency list or an adjacency matrix, depending on your chosen algorithms and performance considerations.

Queue$/$Stack: Both DFS and BFS require additional data structures to manage their exploration process. DFS utilizes a Stack to keep track of visited nodes and backtrack when necessary, while BFS uses a Queue to process nodes level by level.

Deliverables:

A Java program $(.$java source code and $.$jar file$)$ capable of:

Upload and parse the network data from the provided file.

Implement both DFS and BFS algorithms for finding the shortest path between two user$-$selected cities.

Provide a user interface for interacting with the program and selecting cities.

Produce the shortest path as a sequence of cities connected by their distances.

Report: A comprehensive report $($around $10$ pages$)$ should be submitted detailing the following:

Introduction and problem statement

Description of the chosen algorithms and data structures

Implementation details of the Java program

Results and analysis of performance for both algorithms $($theoretical and empirical time complexity$)$