determining attributes for each of the nodes in the ad-hoc network;

providing access to the attributes of each neighboring node within the ad-hoc network, wherein a node is a neighboring node of another node where said neighboring node is a node one hop away from a current node within the ad-hoc network;

explicitly encoding a message with routing destinations, routing constraints and routing objectives;

estimating the minimum and maximum values of at least one attribute within the plurality of attributes;

defining a plurality of constraints on the plurality of attributes, wherein said plurality of constraints comprises at least one route constraint and at least one destination constraint;

storing a list of entries created by new message types and updated by subsequent messages of the same type, wherein each entry corresponds to one in a plurality of message types and remains in storage for the duration of the node;

performing constraint checking for each message type, wherein each of the message types includes a destination specification, route specification, and objective specification;

performing cost estimation checking for each said message type, wherein cost is defined as the total value of at least one of the plurality of attributes along a message path;

utilizing cost estimation to converge on an optimal message path;

selecting at least one routing strategy;

routing a message within the ad-hoc network according to said at least one strategy, said message including the address of a sending node, wherein the sending node is the most recent node to send the message, the address of the source node, wherein the source node is the node from which the message originated, route and destination constraints, the number of route constraints, the number of destination constraints, message identification number, sequence identification number, and routing objectives; and

recording within the node, information from each message type that passes through the node regarding both active and inactive routes, either contained in the message or regarding the message, or both, wherein the recording includes storing the information in a database for the duration of the node and wherein the source address, routing and destination constraints and routing objectives are explicitly encoded within the nodes of the ad hoc network to enable the network to change routing objectives as necessary in order to implement a generic-purpose routing strategy, wherein said routing objectives and routing strategy are pre-network discovery constraints.