Encyclopedia

Edge list

Graph data structure

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Source updated January 8, 2021

An edge list is a data structure used to represent a graph as a list of its edges. An (unweighted) edge is defined by its start and end vertex, so each edge may be represented by two numbers. The entire edge list may be represented as a two-column matrix. An edge list may be considered a variation on an adjacency list which is represented as a length $|V|$ array of lists. Since each edge contains just two or three numbers, the total space for an edge list is $\Theta (|E|)$ .

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This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Edge list”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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