How to (cheaply) calculate all possible length-r combinations of n possible elements

Question

What is the fastest way to calculate all possible length-r combinations of n possible elements without resorting to brute force techniques or anything that requires STL?

Answer 1

What about this?

#include 

#define SETSIZE 3
#define NELEMS  7

#define BYTETOBINARYPATTERN "%d%d%d%d%d%d%d%d"
#define BYTETOBINARY(byte)  \
    (byte & 0x80 ? 1 : 0), \
            (byte & 0x40 ? 1 : 0), \
            (byte & 0x20 ? 1 : 0), \
            (byte & 0x10 ? 1 : 0), \
            (byte & 0x08 ? 1 : 0), \
            (byte & 0x04 ? 1 : 0), \
            (byte & 0x02 ? 1 : 0), \
            (byte & 0x01 ? 1 : 0)

int main()
{
    unsigned long long x = (1 << SETSIZE) -1;
    unsigned long long N = (1 << NELEMS) -1;

    while(x < N)
    {
            printf ("x: "BYTETOBINARYPATTERN"\n", BYTETOBINARY(x));
            unsigned long long a = x & -x;
            unsigned long long y = x + a;
            x = ((y & -y) / a >> 1) + y - 1;
    }
};

It should print 7C3.