astar_path_length#

astar_path_length(G, source, target, heuristic=None, weight='weight', *, cutoff=None)[source]#

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

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. If the heuristic is inadmissible (if it might overestimate the cost of reaching the goal from a node), the result may not be a shortest path. The algorithm does not support updating heuristic values for the same node due to caching the first heuristic calculation per node.
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 or None to indicate a hidden edge.
cutofffloat, optional: If this is provided, the search will be bounded to this value. I.e. if the evaluation function surpasses this value for a node n, the node will not be expanded further and will be ignored. More formally, let h’(n) be the heuristic function, and g(n) be the cost of reaching n from the source node. Then, if g(n) + h’(n) > cutoff, the node will not be explored further. Note that if the heuristic is inadmissible, it is possible that paths are ignored even though they satisfy the cutoff.

Raises:

NetworkXNoPath: If no path exists between source and target.