A* Algorithm in Haskell
The start of the Advent of code today reminded me of the A* algorithm, which I often find myself using for graph pathfinding related problems.
If there is a heuristic function known that estimates the cost of the cheapest path from a node in the graph to the goal node, then A* can perform better than other search algorithms like Breadth-first Search and Best-first Search by cutting down on the number of nodes visited.
So without further ado, here is my well-commented implementation of the A* algorithm in Haskell12:
{-# LANGUAGE BangPatterns, ScopedTypeVariables #-}
module AStar (astar) where
import Data.List (foldl')
import qualified Data.Map as Map
import qualified Data.PQueue.Prio.Min as PQ
import qualified Data.Set as Set
astar ::
forall node cost. (Ord node, Ord cost, Num cost) =>
-- | The start node.
node ->
-- | The goal node.
node ->
-- | The function to get the next nodes and their costs from a given node.
(node -> [(node, cost)]) ->
-- | The heuristic function to estimate the cost of going from a given node to
-- the goal node.
(node -> node -> cost) ->
-- | Returns Nothing if no path found.
-- Else returns Just (path cost, path as a list of nodes).
Maybe (cost, [node])
astar startNode goalNode nextNodes heuristic =
astar'
(PQ.singleton (heuristic startNode goalNode) (startNode, 0))
Set.empty
(Map.singleton startNode 0)
Map.empty
where
astar' ::
-- | The set of discovered nodes that need to be visited, stored
-- in a min-priority queue prioritized by sum of costs of reaching to
-- the nodes from the start node, and heuristic costs of reaching
-- from the nodes to the goal node.
PQ.MinPQueue cost (node, cost) ->
-- | The set of already visited nodes.
Set.Set node ->
-- | The map of visited or discovered nodes to the currently known minimum
-- costs from the start node to the nodes.
Map.Map node cost ->
-- | The map of visited nodes to the previous nodes in the currently known
-- best path from the start node.
Map.Map node node ->
-- | Returns Nothing if no path found.
-- Else returns Just (path cost, path as a list of nodes).
Maybe (cost, [node])
astar' !discovered !visited !minCosts tracks
-- If the discovered set is empty then the search has failed. Return Nothing.
| PQ.null discovered = Nothing
-- If the current node is the goal node then return the current node cost and
-- path to the current node constructed from the tracks.
| node == goalNode = Just (cost, findPath tracks node)
-- If the current node has already been visited then discard it and continue.
| node `Set.member` visited =
astar' discoveredSansCurrent visited minCosts tracks
-- Else visit the current node and continue.
| otherwise =
let
-- Add the current node to the visited set.
visited' = Set.insert node visited
-- Find the successor nodes of the current node that have not been
-- visited yet, along with their costs and heuristic costs.
successors =
[ (node', cost', heuristic node' goalNode)
| (node', nodeCost) <- nextNodes node, -- Get next nodes.
node' `Set.notMember` visited', -- Keep only unvisited ones.
let cost' = cost + nodeCost, -- Cost of the next node.
-- Keep only unvisited nodes, or previously visited nodes now
-- discovered via less costly paths.
node' `Map.notMember` minCosts || cost' < minCosts Map.! node'
]
-- Insert the successors in the discovered set.
discovered' = foldl' (\q (n, c, h) -> PQ.insert (c + h) (n, c) q)
discoveredSansCurrent successors
-- Insert the successor costs in the minimum cost map.
minCosts' = foldl' (\m (n, c, _) -> Map.insert n c m) minCosts successors
-- Insert the tracks of the successors.
tracks' = foldl' (\m (n, _, _) -> Map.insert n node m) tracks successors
-- Continue via recursion.
in astar' discovered' visited' minCosts' tracks'
where
-- Get (and delete) the node with minimum cost and its cost from the
-- discovered set.
((_, (node, cost)), discoveredSansCurrent) = PQ.deleteFindMin discovered
-- Construct the path of the given node from the start node using the
-- recorded tracks.
findPath tracks node =
if Map.member node tracks
then findPath tracks (tracks Map.! node) ++ [node]
else [node]
That’s it for this short post. Happy pathfinding!
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-
I use the Set and Map container data structures from the containers library, and the minimum priority queue data structure from the the pqueue library. ↩
-
ScopedTypeVariablesextension is needed here to write the type signature of theastar'function. We can omit the signature without any loss of functionality, and then we can remove the extension as well. ↩