Finding the index of a given permutation

Question

I\'m reading the numbers 0, 1, ..., (N - 1) one by one in some order. My goal is to find the lexicography index of this given permutation, using only O(1)

Answer 1

Considering the following data:

chars = [a, b, c, d]
perm = [c, d, a, b]
ids = get_indexes(perm, chars) = [2, 3, 0, 1]

A possible solution for permutation with repetitions goes as follows:

len = length(perm)         (len = 4)
num_chars = length(chars)  (len = 4)

base = num_chars ^ len     (base = 4 ^ 4 = 256)
base = base / len          (base = 256 / 4 = 64)

id = base * ids[0]         (id = 64 * 2 = 128)
base = base / len          (base = 64 / 4 = 16)

id = id + (base * ids[1])  (id = 128 + (16 * 3) = 176)
base = base / len          (base = 16 / 4 = 4)

id = id + (base * ids[2])  (id = 176 + (4 * 0) = 176)
base = base / len          (base = 4 / 4 = 1)

id = id + (base * ids[3])  (id = 176 + (1 * 1) = 177)

Reverse process:

id = 177
(id / (4 ^ 3)) % 4 = (177 / 64) % 4 =   2 % 4 = 2 -> chars[2] -> c
(id / (4 ^ 2)) % 4 = (177 / 16) % 4 =  11 % 4 = 3 -> chars[3] -> d
(id / (4 ^ 1)) % 4 = (177 / 4)  % 4 =  44 % 4 = 0 -> chars[0] -> a
(id / (4 ^ 0)) % 4 = (177 / 1)  % 4 = 177 % 4 = 1 -> chars[1] -> b

The number of possible permutations is given by num_chars ^ num_perm_digits, having num_chars as the number of possible characters, and num_perm_digits as the number of digits in a permutation.

This requires O(1) in space, considering the initial list as a constant cost; and it requires O(N) in time, considering N as the number of digits your permutation will have.

Based on the steps above, you can do:

function identify_permutation(perm, chars) {

    for (i = 0; i < length(perm); i++) {
        ids[i] = get_index(perm[i], chars);
    }

    len = length(perm);
    num_chars = length(chars);

    index = 0;
    base = num_chars ^ len - 1;
    for (i = 0; i < length(perm); i++) {
        index += base * ids[i];
        base = base / len;
    }

}

It's a pseudocode, but it's also quite easy to convert to any language (: