Generating all permutations of a given string

Question

What is an elegant way to find all the permutations of a string. E.g. permutation for ba, would be ba and ab, but what about longer st

Answer 1

import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Scanner;
public class hello {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        hello h = new hello();
        h.printcomp();
    }
      int fact=1;
    public void factrec(int a,int k){
        if(a>=k)
        {fact=fact*k;
        k++;
        factrec(a,k);
        }
        else
        {System.out.println("The string  will have "+fact+" permutations");
        }
        }
    public void printcomp(){
        String str;
        int k;
        Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
        System.out.println("enter the string whose permutations has to b found");
        str=in.next();
        k=str.length();
        factrec(k,1);
        String[] arr =new String[fact];
        char[] array = str.toCharArray();
        while(p<fact)
        printcomprec(k,array,arr);
            // if incase u need array containing all the permutation use this
            //for(int d=0;d<fact;d++)         
        //System.out.println(arr[d]);
    }
    int y=1;
    int p = 0;
    int g=1;
    int z = 0;
    public void printcomprec(int k,char array[],String arr[]){
        for (int l = 0; l < k; l++) {
            for (int b=0;b<k-1;b++){
            for (int i=1; i<k-g; i++) {
                char temp;
                String stri = "";
                temp = array[i];
                array[i] = array[i + g];
                array[i + g] = temp;
                for (int j = 0; j < k; j++)
                    stri += array[j];
                arr[z] = stri;
                System.out.println(arr[z] + "   " + p++);
                z++;
            }
            }
            char temp;
            temp=array[0];
            array[0]=array[y];
            array[y]=temp;
            if (y >= k-1)
                y=y-(k-1);
            else
                y++;
        }
        if (g >= k-1)
            g=1;
        else
            g++;
    }

}

Answer 2

Use recursion.

• Try each of the letters in turn as the first letter and then find all the permutations of the remaining letters using a recursive call.
• The base case is when the input is an empty string the only permutation is the empty string.

Answer 3

Another simple way is to loop through the string, pick the character that is not used yet and put it to a buffer, continue the loop till the buffer size equals to the string length. I like this back tracking solution better because:

1. Easy to understand
2. Easy to avoid duplication
3. The output is sorted

Here is the java code:

List<String> permute(String str) {
  if (str == null) {
    return null;
  }

  char[] chars = str.toCharArray();
  boolean[] used = new boolean[chars.length];

  List<String> res = new ArrayList<String>();
  StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

  Arrays.sort(chars);

  helper(chars, used, sb, res);

  return res;
}

void helper(char[] chars, boolean[] used, StringBuilder sb, List<String> res) {
  if (sb.length() == chars.length) {
    res.add(sb.toString());
    return;
  }

  for (int i = 0; i < chars.length; i++) {
    // avoid duplicates
    if (i > 0 && chars[i] == chars[i - 1] && !used[i - 1]) {
      continue;
    }

    // pick the character that has not used yet
    if (!used[i]) {
      used[i] = true;
      sb.append(chars[i]);

      helper(chars, used, sb, res);

      // back tracking
      sb.deleteCharAt(sb.length() - 1);
      used[i] = false;
    }
  }
}

Input str: 1231

Output list: {1123, 1132, 1213, 1231, 1312, 1321, 2113, 2131, 2311, 3112, 3121, 3211}

Noticed that the output is sorted, and there is no duplicate result.

Answer 4

We can use factorial to find how many strings started with particular letter.

Example: take the input abcd. (3!) == 6 strings will start with every letter of abcd.

static public int facts(int x){
    int sum = 1;
    for (int i = 1; i < x; i++) {
        sum *= (i+1);
    }
    return sum;
}

public static void permutation(String str) {
    char[] str2 = str.toCharArray();
    int n = str2.length;
    int permutation = 0;
    if (n == 1) {
        System.out.println(str2[0]);
    } else if (n == 2) {
        System.out.println(str2[0] + "" + str2[1]);
        System.out.println(str2[1] + "" + str2[0]);
    } else {
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
            if (true) {
                char[] str3 = str.toCharArray();
                char temp = str3[i];
                str3[i] = str3[0];
                str3[0] = temp;
                str2 = str3;
            }

            for (int j = 1, count = 0; count < facts(n-1); j++, count++) {
                if (j != n-1) {
                    char temp1 = str2[j+1];
                    str2[j+1] = str2[j];
                    str2[j] = temp1;
                } else {
                    char temp1 = str2[n-1];
                    str2[n-1] = str2[1];
                    str2[1] = temp1;
                    j = 1;
                } // end of else block
                permutation++;
                System.out.print("permutation " + permutation + " is   -> ");
                for (int k = 0; k < n; k++) {
                    System.out.print(str2[k]);
                } // end of loop k
                System.out.println();
            } // end of loop j
        } // end of loop i
    }
}

Answer 5

Let's use input abc as an example.

Start off with just the last element (c) in a set (["c"]), then add the second last element (b) to its front, end and every possible positions in the middle, making it ["bc", "cb"] and then in the same manner it will add the next element from the back (a) to each string in the set making it:

"a" + "bc" = ["abc", "bac", "bca"]  and  "a" + "cb" = ["acb" ,"cab", "cba"] 

Thus entire permutation:

["abc", "bac", "bca","acb" ,"cab", "cba"]

Code:

public class Test 
{
    static Set<String> permutations;
    static Set<String> result = new HashSet<String>();

    public static Set<String> permutation(String string) {
        permutations = new HashSet<String>();

        int n = string.length();
        for (int i = n - 1; i >= 0; i--) 
        {
            shuffle(string.charAt(i));
        }
        return permutations;
    }

    private static void shuffle(char c) {
        if (permutations.size() == 0) {
            permutations.add(String.valueOf(c));
        } else {
            Iterator<String> it = permutations.iterator();
            for (int i = 0; i < permutations.size(); i++) {

                String temp1;
                for (; it.hasNext();) {
                    temp1 = it.next();
                    for (int k = 0; k < temp1.length() + 1; k += 1) {
                        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(temp1);

                        sb.insert(k, c);

                        result.add(sb.toString());
                    }
                }
            }
            permutations = result;
            //'result' has to be refreshed so that in next run it doesn't contain stale values.
            result = new HashSet<String>();
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Set<String> result = permutation("abc");

        System.out.println("\nThere are total of " + result.size() + " permutations:");
        Iterator<String> it = result.iterator();
        while (it.hasNext()) {
            System.out.println(it.next());
        }
    }
}

Answer 6

This can be done iteratively by simply inserting each letter of the string in turn in all locations of the previous partial results.

We start with [A], which with B becomes [BA, AB], and with C, [CBA, BCA, BAC, CAB, etc].

The running time would be O(n!), which, for the test case ABCD, is 1 x 2 x 3 x 4.

In the above product, the 1 is for A, the 2 is for B, etc.

Dart sample:

void main() {

  String insertAt(String a, String b, int index)
  {
    return a.substring(0, index) + b + a.substring(index);
  }

  List<String> Permute(String word) {

    var letters = word.split('');

    var p_list = [ letters.first ];

    for (var c in letters.sublist(1)) {

      var new_list = [ ];

      for (var p in p_list)
        for (int i = 0; i <= p.length; i++)
          new_list.add(insertAt(p, c, i));

      p_list = new_list;
    }

    return p_list;
  }

  print(Permute("ABCD"));

}