Algorithm for counting connected components of a graph in Python

Question

I try to write a script that counts connected components of a graph and I can't get the right solution. I have a simple graph with 6 nodes (vertexes), nodes 1 and 2 are connected, and nodes 3 and 4 are connected (6 vertexes; 1-2,3-4,5,6). So the graph contains 4 connected components. I use following script to count connected components, but I get wrong result (2).

nodes = [[1, [2], False], [2, [1], False], [3, [4], False], [4, [3], False], [5, [], False], [6, [], False]]
# 6 nodes, every node has an id, list of connected nodes and boolean whether the node has already been visited    

componentsCount = 0

def mark_nodes( list_of_nodes):
    global componentsCount
    componentsCount = 0
    for node in list_of_nodes:
      node[2] = False
      mark_node_auxiliary( node)

def mark_node_auxiliary( node): 
    global componentsCount
    if not node[2] == True: 
      node[2] = True
      for neighbor in node[1]:
        nodes[neighbor - 1][2] = True
        mark_node_auxiliary( nodes[neighbor - 1])
    else:
      unmarkedNodes = []
      for neighbor in node[1]:
        if not nodes[neighbor - 1][2] == True:  # This condition is never met. WHY???
          unmarkedNodes.append( neighbor)
          componentsCount += 1   
      for unmarkedNode in unmarkedNodes:
        mark_node_auxiliary( nodes[unmarkedNode - 1])

def get_connected_components_number( graph):
    result = componentsCount
    mark_nodes( graph)
    for node in nodes:
      if len( node[1]) == 0:      # For every vertex without neighbor...  
        result += 1               # ... increment number of connected components by 1.
    return result

print get_connected_components_number( nodes)

Can anyone please help me find the mistake?

Answer 1

Sometimes it's easier to write code than to read it.

Put this through some tests, I'm pretty sure it'll always work as long as every connection is bidirectional (such as in your example).

def recursivelyMark(nodeID, nodes):
    (connections, visited) = nodes[nodeID]
    if visited:
        return
    nodes[nodeID][1] = True
    for connectedNodeID in connections:
        recursivelyMark(connectedNodeID, nodes)

def main():
    nodes = [[[1], False], [[0], False], [[3], False], [[2], False], [[], False], [[], False]]
    componentsCount = 0
    for (nodeID, (connections, visited)) in enumerate(nodes):
        if visited == False:
            componentsCount += 1
            recursivelyMark(nodeID, nodes)
    print(componentsCount)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Note that I removed the ID from the node information since its position in the array is its ID. Let me know if this program doesn't do what you need.

Answer 2

A disjoint-set datastructure will really help you to write clear code here, see Wikipedia.

The basic idea is that you associate a set with each node in your graph, and for each edge you merge the sets of its two endpoints. Two sets x and y are the same if x.find() == y.find()

Here's the most naive implementation (which has bad worst-case complexity), but there's a couple of optimisations of the DisjointSet class on the wikipedia page above which in a handful of extra lines of code make this efficient. I omitted them for clarity.

nodes = [[1, [2]], [2, [1]], [3, [4]], [4, [3]], [5, []], [6, []]]

def count_components(nodes):
    sets = {}
    for node in nodes:
      sets[node[0]] = DisjointSet()
    for node in nodes:
        for vtx in node[1]:
            sets[node[0]].union(sets[vtx])
    return len(set(x.find() for x in sets.itervalues()))

class DisjointSet(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.parent = None

    def find(self):
        if self.parent is None: return self
        return self.parent.find()

    def union(self, other):
        them = other.find()
        us = self.find()
        if them != us:
            us.parent = them

print count_components(nodes)