backtracking
nounUS /ˈbæk.tɹækɪŋ/
1
The act of one who, or that which, backtracks; a retracing of one's steps.
2
Aeronautics, Aerospace, Aviation, Business, Engineering, Natural sciences, Physical sciences The usage of a runway as a taxiway, especially at private strips and smaller airports.
3
Computer, Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Science, Sciences The act of building all possible solutions to a problem incrementally, abandoning any candidate solution if it cannot lead to a valid solution.
- backtracking algorithm
- Backtracking is used to solve problems in which a sequence of objects is chosen from a specific set so that the sequence satisfies some criterion. The classic example of the use of backtracking is the n-Queens problem.2004, Richard E. Neapolitan, Kumarss Naimipour, Foundations of Algorithms Using C++ Pseudocode, 3rd edition, Jones & Bartlett Learning, →ISBN, page 188:
1 more example
- This grammar only uses tokens and rules, so there is no backtracking involved, and the grammar is a predictive parser. This is fairly typical. Many grammars work fine without backtracking, or with backtracking in just a few places.2017, Moritz Lenz, Parsing with Perl 6 Regexes and Grammars, Apress, →ISBN, page 112:
- Derived terms
- catastrophic backtracking, nonbacktracking, runaway backtracking