Smart way to generate permutation and combination of String

Question

String database[] = {\'a\', \'b\', \'c\'};

I would like to generate the following strings sequence, based on given database.

Answer 1

For anyone looking for non-recursive options, here is a sample for numeric permutations (can easily be adapted to char. numberOfAgents is the number of columns and the set of numbers is 0 to numberOfActions:

    int numberOfAgents=5;
    int numberOfActions = 8;
    byte[][]combinations = new byte[(int)Math.pow(numberOfActions,numberOfAgents)][numberOfAgents];

    // do each column separately
    for (byte j = 0; j < numberOfAgents; j++) {
        // for this column, repeat each option in the set 'reps' times
        int reps = (int) Math.pow(numberOfActions, j);

        // for each column, repeat the whole set of options until we reach the end
        int counter=0;
        while(counter