astar_path

astar_path(G, source, target, heuristic=None, weight='weight')

Returns a list of nodes in a shortest path between source and target using the A* (“A-star”) algorithm.

There may be more than one shortest path. This returns only one.

Parameters

GNetworkX graph

sourcenode

Starting node for path

targetnode

Ending node for path

heuristicfunction

A function to evaluate the estimate of the distance from the a node to the target. The function takes two nodes arguments and must return a number.

weightstring or function

If this is a string, then edge weights will be accessed via the edge attribute with this key (that is, the weight of the edge joining u to v will be G.edges[u, v][weight]). If no such edge attribute exists, the weight of the edge is assumed to be one. If this is a function, the weight of an edge is the value returned by the function. The function must accept exactly three positional arguments: the two endpoints of an edge and the dictionary of edge attributes for that edge. The function must return a number.

Raises

NetworkXNoPath

If no path exists between source and target.

See also

shortest_path, dijkstra_path

Examples

>>> G = nx.path_graph(5)
>>> print(nx.astar_path(G, 0, 4))
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
>>> G = nx.grid_graph(dim=[3, 3])  # nodes are two-tuples (x,y)
>>> nx.set_edge_attributes(G, {e: e[1][0] * 2 for e in G.edges()}, "cost")
>>> def dist(a, b):
...     (x1, y1) = a
...     (x2, y2) = b
...     return ((x1 - x2) ** 2 + (y1 - y2) ** 2) ** 0.5
>>> print(nx.astar_path(G, (0, 0), (2, 2), heuristic=dist, weight="cost"))
[(0, 0), (0, 1), (0, 2), (1, 2), (2, 2)]