Posted by Curtis on 12/15/05 06:42

ZeldorBlat <zeldorblat@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1134537220.700264.55270@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> Curtis wrote:
>
> > The only way I can presently see to solve the problem is
> > with linked lists, and backwalk the link paths when,
say, E
> > calls B. But I've never worked on this issue before, so
> > maybe there's a simpler algorithm that hasn't occurred
to
> > me?
> >
>
> Well, you basically just described the best algorithm out
there. By
> doing a depth first search of the tree you can detect
cycles pretty
> easily.

That may turn out to be simple. Keep track of the path we're
following, like:

FileA -> FileB --> FileC --> FileD --> File?

If the call to File? is anywhere on that particular path,
that would be a circular call.

I recall working through something not unlike this on a
TreeView component I was writing in Object Pascal some time
back... maybe I can find the code somewhere.


--

Curtis

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