Generating all permutations of a given string

Question

What is an elegant way to find all the permutations of a string. E.g. ba, would be ba and ab, but what about abcdefgh? Is there any example Java implementation?

Answer 1

One of the simple solution could be just keep swapping the characters recursively using two pointers.

public static void main(String[] args)
{
    String str="abcdefgh";
    perm(str);
}
public static void perm(String str)
{  char[] char_arr=str.toCharArray();
    helper(char_arr,0);
}
public static void helper(char[] char_arr, int i)
{
    if(i==char_arr.length-1)
    {
        // print the shuffled string 
            String str="";
            for(int j=0; j<char_arr.length; j++)
            {
                str=str+char_arr[j];
            }
            System.out.println(str);
    }
    else
    {
    for(int j=i; j<char_arr.length; j++)
    {
        char tmp = char_arr[i];
        char_arr[i] = char_arr[j];
        char_arr[j] = tmp;
        helper(char_arr,i+1);
        char tmp1 = char_arr[i];
        char_arr[i] = char_arr[j];
        char_arr[j] = tmp1;
    }
}
}

Answer 2

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 3

Here are two c# versions (just for reference): 1. Prints all permuations 2. returns all permutations

Basic gist of the algorithm is (probably below code is more intuitive - nevertheless, here is some explanation of what below code does): - from the current index to for the rest of the collection, swap the element at current index - get the permutations for the remaining elements from next index recursively - restore the order, by re-swapping

Note: the above recursive function will be invoked from the start index.

private void PrintAllPermutations(int[] a, int index, ref int count)
        {
            if (index == (a.Length - 1))
            {
                count++;
                var s = string.Format("{0}: {1}", count, string.Join(",", a));
                Debug.WriteLine(s);
            }
            for (int i = index; i < a.Length; i++)
            {
                Utilities.swap(ref a[i], ref a[index]);
                this.PrintAllPermutations(a, index + 1, ref count);
                Utilities.swap(ref a[i], ref a[index]);
            }
        }
        private int PrintAllPermutations(int[] a)
        {
            a.ThrowIfNull("a");
            int count = 0;
            this.PrintAllPermutations(a, index:0, count: ref count);
            return count;
        }

version 2 (same as above - but returns the permutations in lieu of printing)

private int[][] GetAllPermutations(int[] a, int index)
        {
            List<int[]> permutations = new List<int[]>();
            if (index == (a.Length - 1))
            {
                permutations.Add(a.ToArray());
            }

            for (int i = index; i < a.Length; i++)
            {
                Utilities.swap(ref a[i], ref a[index]);
                var r = this.GetAllPermutations(a, index + 1);
                permutations.AddRange(r);
                Utilities.swap(ref a[i], ref a[index]);
            }
            return permutations.ToArray();
        }
        private int[][] GetAllPermutations(int[] p)
        {
            p.ThrowIfNull("p");
            return this.GetAllPermutations(p, 0);
        }

Unit Tests

[TestMethod]
        public void PermutationsTests()
        {
            List<int> input = new List<int>();
            int[] output = { 0, 1, 2, 6, 24, 120 };
            for (int i = 0; i <= 5; i++)
            {
                if (i != 0)
                {
                    input.Add(i);
                }
                Debug.WriteLine("================PrintAllPermutations===================");
                int count = this.PrintAllPermutations(input.ToArray());
                Assert.IsTrue(count == output[i]);
                Debug.WriteLine("=====================GetAllPermutations=================");
                var r = this.GetAllPermutations(input.ToArray());
                Assert.IsTrue(count == r.Length);
                for (int j = 1; j <= r.Length;j++ )
                {
                    string s = string.Format("{0}: {1}", j,
                        string.Join(",", r[j - 1]));
                    Debug.WriteLine(s);
                }
                Debug.WriteLine("No.OfElements: {0}, TotalPerms: {1}", i, count);
            }
        }

Answer 4

A java implementation to print all the permutations of a given string considering duplicate characters and prints only unique characters is as follow:

import java.util.Set;
import java.util.HashSet;

public class PrintAllPermutations2
{
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        String str = "AAC";

    PrintAllPermutations2 permutation = new PrintAllPermutations2();

    Set<String> uniqueStrings = new HashSet<>();

    permutation.permute("", str, uniqueStrings);
}

void permute(String prefixString, String s, Set<String> set)
{
    int n = s.length();

    if(n == 0)
    {
        if(!set.contains(prefixString))
        {
            System.out.println(prefixString);
            set.add(prefixString);
        }
    }
    else
    {
        for(int i=0; i<n; i++)
        {
            permute(prefixString + s.charAt(i), s.substring(0,i) + s.substring(i+1,n), set);
        }
    }
}
}

Answer 5

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 6

A very basic solution in Java is to use recursion + Set ( to avoid repetitions ) if you want to store and return the solution strings :

public static Set<String> generatePerm(String input)
{
    Set<String> set = new HashSet<String>();
    if (input == "")
        return set;

    Character a = input.charAt(0);

    if (input.length() > 1)
    {
        input = input.substring(1);

        Set<String> permSet = generatePerm(input);

        for (String x : permSet)
        {
            for (int i = 0; i <= x.length(); i++)
            {
                set.add(x.substring(0, i) + a + x.substring(i));
            }
        }
    }
    else
    {
        set.add(a + "");
    }
    return set;
}