Is zero allowed as an edge's weight, in a weighted graph?

Answered By : David Richerby

Allowed by whom? There is no Central Graph Administration that decides what you can and cannot do. You can define objects in any way that's convenient for you, as long as you're clear about what the definition is. If zero-weighted edges are useful to you, then use them; just make sure your readers know that's what you're doing.

The reason you don't usually see zero-weight edges is that, in most contexts, an edge with weight zero is exactly equivalent to the absence of an edge. For example, if your graph represents countries and the amount of trade done between them, a zero-weight edge would mean no trade, which is the same as having no edge at all. If your graph represents distances, a zero-weight edge would correspond to two places at distance zero from each other, which would mean they'd actually be the same place, so should both be represented by the same vertex. However, in other contexts, zero-weight edges could make sense. For example, if your graph represents a road network and edge weights represent the amount of traffic, there's a big difference between a road that nobody uses (zero-weight edge) and no road at all (no edge).

Problem Detail: 

I am trying to write a script that generates random graphs and I need to know if an edge in a weighted graph can have the 0 value.

actually it makes sense that 0 could be used as an edge's weight, but I've been working with graphs in last few days and I have never seen an example of it.

Asked By : Taxellool

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Question Source : http://cs.stackexchange.com/questions/61022