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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.8

General Multiplicative Spanners in Practice

Authors: Fritz Bökler, Markus Chimani, and Henning Jasper

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 371, 24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026)

Abstract

Given an undirected graph G with edge weights and lengths, a minimum α-spanner is a least-weight subgraph H ⊆ G that preserves distances w.r.t. the lengths between all node pairs up to a factor of α. Literature often takes the simplifying assumption of a single (coupled) edge function for weights and lengths. For such instances, several exact and non-exact algorithms are known and have been thoroughly evaluated in practice. However, many practical instances have decoupled form, as their weights and lengths are generally independent. Due to the increased complexity, only few (and even fewer practical) algorithms are able to guarantee low-weight solutions. This prompts practitioners to force their naturally decoupled instances into a coupled format, forsaking any quality guarantee. We implement several exact, approximative and heuristic algorithms for decoupled α-spanners, and use algorithm engineering to speed them up in practice. Our hypothesis-driven experiments evaluate their performance w.r.t. solution quality and speed. Generally, many practical instances can indeed be solved exactly within reasonable time, while LP-based approximation algorithms are not worthwhile. We find that standard greedy algorithms often yield acceptable results, but there are also practical instances for which they yield arbitrarily poor solutions. Here, augmented greedy variations offer a good compromise between solution quality and speed.

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Fritz Bökler, Markus Chimani, and Henning Jasper. General Multiplicative Spanners in Practice. In 24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 371, pp. 8:1-8:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{bokler_et_al:LIPIcs.SEA.2026.8,
  author =	{B\"{o}kler, Fritz and Chimani, Markus and Jasper, Henning},
  title =	{{General Multiplicative Spanners in Practice}},
  booktitle =	{24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026)},
  pages =	{8:1--8:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-422-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{371},
  editor =	{Aum\"{u}ller, Martin and Finocchi, Irene},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.8},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-260120},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.8},
  annote =	{Keywords: Graph spanners, ILP, experimental study, algorithm engineering}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2024.30

Exact Minimum Weight Spanners via Column Generation

Authors: Fritz Bökler, Markus Chimani, Henning Jasper, and Mirko H. Wagner

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 308, 32nd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2024)

Abstract

Given a weighted graph G, a minimum weight α-spanner is a least-weight subgraph H ⊆ G that preserves minimum distances between all node pairs up to a factor of α. There are many results on heuristics and approximation algorithms, including a recent investigation of their practical performance [Markus Chimani and Finn Stutzenstein, 2022]. Exact approaches, in contrast, have long been denounced as impractical: The first exact ILP (integer linear program) method [Sigurd and Zachariasen, 2004] from 2004 is based on a model with exponentially many path variables, solved via column generation. A second approach [Ahmed et al., 2019], modeling via arc-based multicommodity flow, was presented in 2019. In both cases, only graphs with 40-100 nodes were reported to be solvable. In this paper, we briefly report on a theoretical comparison between these two models from a polyhedral point of view, and then concentrate on improvements and engineering aspects. We evaluate their performance in a large-scale empirical study. We report that our tuned column generation approach, based on multicriteria shortest path computations, is able to solve instances with over 16 000 nodes within 13 min. Furthermore, now knowing optimal solutions for larger graphs, we are able to investigate the quality of the strongest known heuristic on reasonably sized instances for the first time.

Cite as

Fritz Bökler, Markus Chimani, Henning Jasper, and Mirko H. Wagner. Exact Minimum Weight Spanners via Column Generation. In 32nd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 308, pp. 30:1-30:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)

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@InProceedings{bokler_et_al:LIPIcs.ESA.2024.30,
  author =	{B\"{o}kler, Fritz and Chimani, Markus and Jasper, Henning and Wagner, Mirko H.},
  title =	{{Exact Minimum Weight Spanners via Column Generation}},
  booktitle =	{32nd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2024)},
  pages =	{30:1--30:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-338-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2024},
  volume =	{308},
  editor =	{Chan, Timothy and Fischer, Johannes and Iacono, John and Herman, Grzegorz},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2024.30},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-211012},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2024.30},
  annote =	{Keywords: Graph spanners, ILP, algorithm engineering, experimental study}
}

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General Multiplicative Spanners in Practice

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Exact Minimum Weight Spanners via Column Generation

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