For permutations, given N
and k
, I have a function that finds the k
th permutation of N
in lexicographic order. Also, given a permutation perm
, I have a function that finds the lexicographic index of the permutation among all permutations of N
. To do this, I used the "factorial decomposition" as suggested in this answer.
Now I want to do the same thing for integer partitions of N
. For example, for N=7
, I want to be able to back and forth between the index (left) and the partition (right):
0 ( 7 )
1 ( 6 1 )
2 ( 5 2 )
3 ( 5 1 1 )
4 ( 4 3 )
5 ( 4 2 1 )
6 ( 4 1 1 1 )
7 ( 3 3 1 )
8 ( 3 2 2 )
9 ( 3 2 1 1 )
10 ( 3 1 1 1 1 )
11 ( 2 2 2 1 )
12 ( 2 2 1 1 1 )
13 ( 2 1 1 1 1 1 )
14 ( 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 )
I've tried a few things. The best I came up with was
sum = 0;
for (int i=0; i<length; ++i)
sum += part[i]*i;
return sum;
which gives the following:
0 0( 7 )
1 1( 6 1 )
2 2( 5 2 )
3 3( 5 1 1 )
3 4( 4 3 )
4 5( 4 2 1 )
6 6( 4 1 1 1 )
5 7( 3 3 1 )
6 8( 3 2 2 )
7 9( 3 2 1 1 )
10 10( 3 1 1 1 1 )
9 11( 2 2 2 1 )
11 12( 2 2 1 1 1 )
15 13( 2 1 1 1 1 1 )
21 14( 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 )
This doesn't quite work, but seems to be on the right track. I came up with this because it sort of counts how many times I have to move a number down (like 6,3,2
goes to 6,3,1,1
). I can't see how to fix it, though, because I don't know how to account for when things have to get recombined (like 6,3,1,1
goes to 6,2,2
).
Think about why the "factorial decomposition" works for permutations, and the same logic works here. However, instead of using k!
for the number of permutations of k
objects, you must use the partition function p(n,k)
for the number of partitions of n
with largest part at most k
. For n=7
, these numbers are:
k | p(7,k)
0 | 0
1 | 1
2 | 4
3 | 8
4 | 11
5 | 13
6 | 14
7 | 15
To get the lexicographic index of (3,2,1,1)
, for example, you compute
p(3+2+1+1) - [ p(3+2+1+1,3-1) + p(2+1+1,2-1) + p(1+1,1-1) + p(1,1-1) ] - 1
which is 15 - [4 + 1 + 0 + 0] - 1 = 9
. Here you're computing the number of partitions of 7 with largest part less than 3 plus the number of partitions of 4 with largest part less than 2 plus ... The same logic can reverse this. In C, the (untested!) functions are:
int
rank(int part[], int size, int length) {
int r = 0;
int n = size;
int k;
for (int i=0; i<length; ++i) {
k = part[i];
r += numPar(n,k-1);
n -= k;
}
return numPar(size)-r;
}
int
unrank (int n, int size, int part[]) {
int N = size;
n = numPar(N)-n-1;
int length = 0;
int k,p;
while (N>0) {
for (k=0; k<N; ++k) {
p = numPar(N,k);
if (p>n) break;
}
parts[length++] = k;
N -= k;
n -= numPar(N,k-1);
}
return length;
}
Here numPar(int n)
should return the number of partitions of n
, and numPar(int n, int k)
should return the number of partitions of n
with largest part at most k
. You can write these yourself using recurrence relations.
#include <stdio.h>
// number of combinations to divide by the number of k below n
int partition(int n, int k){
int p,i;
if(n<0) return 0;
if(n<2 || k==1) return 1;
for(p=0,i=1;i<=k;i++){
p+=partition(n-i,i);
}
return p;
}
void part_nth_a(int n, int k, int nth){
if(n==0)return;
if(n== 1 || n==k && nth == 0){
printf("%d ", n);
return ;
}
int i, diff;
for(i=0;i<k;++i){
diff = partition(n, k-i) - partition(n, k-i-1);
if(nth < diff){
printf("%d ", k-i);
n -= (k-i);
if(diff == 1)
part_nth_a(n, k-i, 0);
else
part_nth_a(n, k-i, nth);
return;
}
nth -= diff;
}
}
void part_nth(int n, int nth){
if(nth == 0){
printf("%d ", n);
return ;
}
int i, j, numOfPart;
for(i=1;i<n;++i){
numOfPart = n-i < i ? partition(i, n-i) : partition(i, i);
if(nth <= numOfPart)
break;
nth -= numOfPart;
}
printf("%d ", n-i);
if(n-i < i)
part_nth_a(i, n-i, nth-1);
else
part_nth_a(i, i, nth-1);
}
int main(){
int n = 7;
int i, numOfPart = partition(n, n);
for(i=0;i<numOfPart;++i){
printf("%2d ( ", i);
part_nth(n, i);
printf(")\n");
}
return 0;
}