How would you calculate all possible permutations of 0 through N iteratively?

Question

I need to calculate permutations iteratively. The method signature looks like:

int[][] permute(int n)

For n = 3 for example, the r

Answer 1

I found Joey Adams' version to be the most readable, but I couldn't port it directly to C# because of how C# handles the scoping of for-loop variables. Hence, this is a slightly tweaked version of his code:

/// 

/// Performs an in-place permutation of , and returns if there 
/// are any more permutations remaining.
/// 
private static bool NextPermutation(int[] values)
{
    if (values.Length == 0)
        throw new ArgumentException("Cannot permutate an empty collection.");

    //Find all terms at the end that are in reverse order.
    //  Example: 0 3 (5 4 2 1) (i becomes 2)
    int tail = values.Length - 1;
    while(tail > 0 && values[tail - 1] >= values[tail])
        tail--;

    if (tail > 0)
    {
        //Find the last item from the tail set greater than the last item from the head 
        //set, and swap them.
        //  Example: 0 3* (5 4* 2 1)
        //  Becomes: 0 4* (5 3* 2 1)
        int index = values.Length - 1;
        while (index > tail && values[index] <= values[tail - 1])
            index--;

        Swap(ref values[tail - 1], ref values[index]);
    }

    //Reverse the tail set's order.
    int limit = (values.Length - tail) / 2;
    for (int index = 0; index < limit; index++)
        Swap(ref values[tail + index], ref values[values.Length - 1 - index]);

    //If the entire list was in reverse order, tail will be zero.
    return (tail != 0);
}

private static void Swap(ref T left, ref T right)
{
    T temp = left;
    left = right;
    right = temp;
}