I've written a permutation generator for Scala lists that generates all permutations of a given list. So far, I've got the following based on this Haskell implementation (and I think it's more efficient than several other options I've tried). Are there any ways to make this even more efficient, or have I covered all my bases?
/** For each element x in List xss, returns (x, xss - x) */
def selections[A](xss:List[A]):List[(A,List[A])] = xss match {
case Nil => Nil
case x :: xs =>
(x, xs) :: (for( (y, ys) <- selections (xs) )
yield (y, x :: ys))
}
/** Returns a list containing all permutations of the input list */
def permute[A](xs:List[A]):List[List[A]] = xs match {
case Nil => List(Nil)
//special case lists of length 1 and 2 for better performance
case t :: Nil => List(xs)
case t :: u :: Nil => List(xs,List(u,t))
case _ =>
for ( (y,ys) <- selections(xs); ps <- permute(ys))
yield y :: ps
}