Question

So I’d like to create a shortest path maze solver that solves a maze. The maze is similar to this:

My mazes will always have a wall around them. Also, the @s are walls if you couldn’t tell.

@@@@@@@@
@   S@ @
@@@ @@E@
@   @  @
@@@   @@
@@@@@@@@

Where S is the start and E is the end.

I’d like to apply Dijkstra’s algo, but I don’t understand how to actually implement it. It’s like:

1. Check current position (which is start at the beginning). If it’s E, return “path” <– which is…? Else, mark current position as visited and somehow mark which position it came from…
2. Enqueue all of current positions neighbors that aren’t walls and aren’t already visited.
3. Repeat number 1 for all of the neighbor, and enqueue all the neighbors of the neighbors.

… I’m confused, please help. I have a class that holds the x and y coordinates of both start and finish, as well as a char[][] of the actual maze. Also, I’m attempting to print out the solved version of the maze. That is, replace the shortest path positions with something like a period. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

One of the most widely used and effective pathfinding algorithms is the A* Pathfinding Algorithm Whilst this is probably surplus to your needs, it is a often used in games and other forms of computer science, and is scalable to your needs.