Generating all combinations of a list in python

Question

Here\'s the question:

Given a list of items in Python, how would I go by to get all the possible combinations of the items?

There are several similar questio

Answer 1

Are you looking for itertools.permutations instead?

From help(itertools.permutations),

Help on class permutations in module itertools:

class permutations(__builtin__.object)
 |  permutations(iterable[, r]) --> permutations object
 |  
 |  Return successive r-length permutations of elements in the iterable.
 |  
 |  permutations(range(3), 2) --> (0,1), (0,2), (1,0), (1,2), (2,0), (2,1)

Sample Code :

>>> from itertools import permutations
>>> stuff = [1, 2, 3]
>>> for i in range(0, len(stuff)+1):
        for subset in permutations(stuff, i):
               print(subset)


()
(1,)
(2,)
(3,)
(1, 2)
(1, 3)
(2, 1)
(2, 3)
(3, 1)
(3, 2)
(1, 2, 3)
(1, 3, 2)
(2, 1, 3)
(2, 3, 1)
(3, 1, 2)
(3, 2, 1)

From Wikipedia, the difference between permutations and combinations :

Permutation :

Informally, a permutation of a set of objects is an arrangement of those objects into a particular order. For example, there are six permutations of the set {1,2,3}, namely (1,2,3), (1,3,2), (2,1,3), (2,3,1), (3,1,2), and (3,2,1).

Combination :

In mathematics a combination is a way of selecting several things out of a larger group, where (unlike permutations) order does not matter.