Bidirectional Search

Why Trust Techopedia

What Does Bidirectional Search Mean?

Bidirectional search is a type of search and sort activity that combines two directional approaches, so that the generator in question searches in two directions at the same time.

Advertisements

Using this method can decrease the amount of search activity needed to achieve a particular result.

Techopedia Explains Bidirectional Search

Experts sometimes define bidirectional search as a "brute force search algorithm" that requires an explicit goal state or orienting desired result in order to proceed. Another way to think about bidirectional search is that it's in contrast to a single directional search that only goes from the top of the system to the bottom.

In some ways, bidirectional search is similar to the process of backpropagation in machine learning, where artificial neural networks are built with the ability to feed outputs back into previous neural layers.

Bidirectional search, in search architecture, represents an efficiency that changes outcomes in algorithmic classification or search attempts.

Advertisements

Related Terms

Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist
Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.