The Art of Computer Programming

Résumé du livre

This fascicle introduces what will become by far the longest chapter in The Art of Computer Programming, a chapter on combinatorial algorithms that will itself fill three full-sized volumes. Combinatorial algorithms, informally, are techniques for the high-speed manipulation of extremely large quantities of objects, such as permutations or the elements of graphs. Combinatorial patterns or arrangements solve vast numbers of practical problems, and modern approaches to dealing with them often lead to methods that are more than a thousand times faster than the straightforward procedures of yesteryear. This fascicle primes the pump for everything that follows in the chapter, discussing first the essential ideas of combinatorics and then introducing fundamental ideas for dealing efficiently with 0s and 1s inside a machine, including Boolean basics and Boolean function evaluation. As always, the author's exposition is enhanced by hundreds of new exercises, arranged carefully for self-instruction, together with detailed answers.