dancing links

English

Etymology

The name was suggested by Donald Knuth, because iterations of the algorithm cause the links to interact as if in an “exquisitely choreographed dance”.

Noun

dancing links (uncountable)

1. (computing theory) A technique for reverting the deletion of a node from a circular doubly-linked list, particularly useful for efficiently implementing backtracking algorithms.

   Synonym: (abbreviation) DLX