> 2. Store metadata about the current a* search in the graph nodes themselves so you don't have to maintain in a separate associative array.
This might be suitable in some circumstances, but it mixes your hot & cold data, prevents concurrent searches from being performed. Personally I'd steer away from this without an extremely good reason.
This might be suitable in some circumstances, but it mixes your hot & cold data, prevents concurrent searches from being performed. Personally I'd steer away from this without an extremely good reason.