## Overview

This directory contains a simple example that solves the single source shortest path problem. It is parameterized by N, a number of nodes, and a start and end node in [0..N). A graph is generated with N nodes and some random number of connections between those nodes. A parallel algorithm based on A* is used to find the shortest path. This algorithm varies from serial A* in that it needs to add nodes back to the open set when the g estimate (shortest path from start to the node) is improved, even if the node has already been "visited". This is because nodes are added and removed from the open-set in parallel, resulting in some less optimal paths being explored. The open-set is implemented with the concurrent_priority_queue. Note that since we re-visit nodes, the f estimate (on which the priority queue is sorted) is not technically needed, so we could use this same parallel algorithm with just a concurrent_queue. However, keeping the f estimate and using concurrent_priority_queue results in much better performance. Silent mode prints run time only, regular mode prints shortest path length, and verbose mode prints out the shortest path. The generated graph follows a pattern in which the closer two pairs of node ids are together, the fewer hops there are in a typical path between those nodes. So, for example, the path between 5 and 7 likely has few hops whereas 14 to 78 has more and 0 to 9999 has even more, etc.

## Files

shortpath.cpp
  Driver.
Makefile
  Makefile for building example.

## Directories

msvs
  Contains Microsoft* Visual Studio* 2008 workspace for building and running the example with the Intel® C++ compiler (Windows* systems only).
xcode
  Contains OS X* Xcode* workspace for building and running the example (OS X* systems only).

## To Build

General build directions can be found here.

## Usage

`shortpath -h`
  Prints the help for command line options
`shortpath [#threads=value] [verbose] [silent] [N=value] [start=value] [end=value] [#threads]`
  #threads is the number of threads to use; a range of the form low[:high] where low and optional high are non-negative integers, or 'auto' for the TBB default.
  verbose print full path to screen
  silent limits output to timing info; overrides verbose
  N number of nodes in graph
  start node to start path at
  end node to end path at
To run a short version of this example, e.g., for use with Intel® Parallel Inspector:
  Build a debug version of the example (see the build directions).
  Run it with a small problem size and the desired number of threads, e.g., `shortpath 4 N=20 start=0 end=19`.

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