I have multiple sets of arrays that contain additional arrays that have values attached that I use for figuring out math. In order to find the best combination of these things, I need to mix and match from these arrays. I've seen "solutions" similar to this around, but they're usually 1 array deep with no real combinations/possibilities. So to give an example.
I have sets A, B, and C. Set A contains Aa, Ab, Ac, and Ad. Aa contains a set of values. Extrapolate that out for the others. Aa can only be compared with Ba and Ca. How do I go about writing a program to find all combinations(i.e. Aa, Ab, Cc, Bd compared with Ba, Cb, Ac, Bd and etc) so I can compare the math on each combination to find the best one? Note: this is just an example, I don't need it for specifically 3 sets of 4 sets of 4, it needs to be able to expand.
Now I know I didn't use very meaningful names for my variables, but I would appreciate if any code given does have meaningful names in it(I'd really rather not follow around variables of x and c around in code).
The accepted answer appears to be correct but is a very strange way to do a Cartesian product in C#. If you have a given number of sequences you can take their Cartesian product idiomatically like this:
var aList = new[] { "a1", "a2", "a3" };
var bList = new[] { "b1", "b2", "b3" };
var cList = new[] { "c1", "c2", "c3" };
var product = from a in aList
from b in bList
from c in cList
select new[] { a, b, c };
foreach (var p in product)
Console.WriteLine(string.Join(",", p));
If you have arbitrarily many sequences that you need to take their Cartesian product then you can do it like this:
static class Extensions
{
public static IEnumerable<IEnumerable<T>> CartesianProduct<T>(
this IEnumerable<IEnumerable<T>> sequences)
{
IEnumerable<IEnumerable<T>> emptyProduct = new[] { Enumerable.Empty<T>() };
return sequences.Aggregate(
emptyProduct,
(accumulator, sequence) =>
from accseq in accumulator
from item in sequence
select accseq.Concat(new[] {item}));
}
}
And then:
var aList = new[] { "a1", "a2", "a3" };
var bList = new[] { "b1", "b2", "b3" };
var cList = new[] { "c1", "c2", "c3" };
var lists = new[] { aList, bList, cList };
var product = lists.CartesianProduct();
foreach (var p in product)
Console.WriteLine(string.Join(",", p));
See
http://ericlippert.com/2010/06/28/computing-a-cartesian-product-with-linq/
and my answer to
Generating all Possible Combinations
for more discussion of this problem.
Assuming you are using a version of C# which supports LINQ:
static void Main(string[] args)
{
// declare some lists
var aList = new string[] { "a1", "a2", "a3" };
var bList = new string[] { "b1", "b2", "b3" };
var cList = new string[] { "c1", "c2", "c3" };
// do the equivalent of a SQL CROSS JOIN
var permutations = aList
.Join(bList, a => "", b => "", (a, b) => new string[] { a, b })
.Join(cList, ab => "", c => "", (ab, c) => new string[] { ab[0], ab[1], c });
// print the results
Console.WriteLine("Permutations:");
foreach (var p in permutations)
Console.WriteLine(string.Join(", ", p));
}
The Join calls with the lambda expressions pointing the strings to empty strings causes the Join function to treat the strings as equal, emulating a SQL CROSS JOIN.