In a social network application, you need to find the shortest path between two users who are indirectly connected through mutual friends. How would you approach this problem using graph theory?

In a social network represented as a graph, finding the shortest path between two users involves graph traversal algorithms. Dijkstra's algorithm is well-suited for finding the shortest path in weighted graphs, where the edges (connections between users) have weights (such as the degree of separation or mutual friend count). This algorithm guarantees the shortest path but may be computationally expensive for large graphs. A* algorithm is another option that combines the advantages of Dijkstra's algorithm and heuristic search, providing efficient solutions for finding paths in graphs. Depth-First Search (DFS) and Breadth-First Search (BFS) are more suitable for exploring all possible paths or finding paths without weights but are not directly applicable to finding the shortest path in weighted graphs like social networks.