AlgoScope

DFS Iterative

AlgorithmintermediateGraph Traversalalso called Stack-based DFS

Explicit stack of vertices; avoids recursion depth limits.

Decision · step 2 of 10BFS and DFS: Depth-first from 0
0112345u

Pop 0: new, so visit it as number 1. Its adjacency list: 1, 2. Push the unvisited ones, 1, 2, so that 1 is on top.

Open in the player →or start at step 2

What you will see

The stack beside the graph replaces the call stack.

How bfs and dfs works →

Cost

BestO(V + E)
AverageO(V + E)
WorstO(V + E)
SpaceO(V)

How you work with it here

play it through, step one change at a time, scrub to any step, run it on your own input, predict what happens next, try operations in any order.

Screen readers: Vertices announce name, neighbours and state (in queue, visited, current); each step announces which vertex is processed and which neighbours are discovered.

Reduced motion: Frontier and visited changes are crossfades; the traversal edge is emphasized without a travelling token.

A variant of

Taught by the same lesson

BFS and DFS covers these too, in the same run.