Generate all permutations in go - algorithm

Question

I am looking for a way to generate all possible permutations of a list of elements. Something similar to python's itertools.permutations(arr)
permutations ([])
[]
permutations ([1])
[1]
permutations ([1,2])
[1, 2]
[2, 1]
permutations ([1,2,3])
[1, 2, 3]
[1, 3, 2]
[2, 1, 3]
[2, 3, 1]
[3, 1, 2]
[3, 2, 1]
With the difference that I do not care whether permutations would be generated on demand (like a generator in python) or all together. I also do not care whether they will be lexicographically sorted. All I need is to somehow get these n! permutations.

Answer 1

There are a lot of the algorithms that generate permutations. One of the easiest I found is Heap's algorithm:
It generates each permutation from the previous one by choosing a pair
of elements to interchange.
The idea and a pseudocode that prints the permutations one after another is outlined in the above link. Here is my implementation of the algorithm which returns all permutations
func permutations(arr []int)[][]int{
var helper func([]int, int)
res := [][]int{}
helper = func(arr []int, n int){
if n == 1{
tmp := make([]int, len(arr))
copy(tmp, arr)
res = append(res, tmp)
} else {
for i := 0; i < n; i++{
helper(arr, n - 1)
if n % 2 == 1{
tmp := arr[i]
arr[i] = arr[n - 1]
arr[n - 1] = tmp
} else {
tmp := arr[0]
arr[0] = arr[n - 1]
arr[n - 1] = tmp
}
}
}
}
helper(arr, len(arr))
return res
}
and here is an example of how to use it (Go playground):
arr := []int{1, 2, 3}
fmt.Println(permutations(arr))
[[1 2 3] [2 1 3] [3 2 1] [2 3 1] [3 1 2] [1 3 2]]
One thing to notice that the permutations are not sorted lexicographically (as you have seen in itertools.permutations). If for some reason you need it to be sorted, one way I have found it is to generate them from a factorial number system (it is described in permutation section and allows to quickly find n-th lexicographical permutation).
P.S. you can also take a look at others people code here and here

Answer 2

Here's code that iterates over all permutations without generating them all first. The slice p keeps the intermediate state as offsets in a Fisher-Yates shuffle algorithm. This has the nice property that the zero value for p describes the identity permutation.
package main
import "fmt"
func nextPerm(p []int) {
for i := len(p) - 1; i >= 0; i-- {
if i == 0 || p[i] < len(p)-i-1 {
p[i]++
return
}
p[i] = 0
}
}
func getPerm(orig, p []int) []int {
result := append([]int{}, orig...)
for i, v := range p {
result[i], result[i+v] = result[i+v], result[i]
}
return result
}
func main() {
orig := []int{11, 22, 33}
for p := make([]int, len(orig)); p[0] < len(p); nextPerm(p) {
fmt.Println(getPerm(orig, p))
}
}

Answer 3

var res [][]int
func permute(nums []int) [][]int {
res=make([][]int,0)
n:=len(nums)
var backTrack func(int)
backTrack=func(first int){
if first == n{
temp:=make([]int, n)
copy(temp,nums)
res = append(res, temp)
}
for i:=first;i<n;i++{
nums[first],nums[i] = nums[i],nums[first]
backTrack(first+1)
nums[first],nums[i] = nums[i],nums[first]
}
}
backTrack(0)
return res
}

Answer 4

In my case I had a reference to an array, then I've did a few changes in your example:
func generateIntPermutations(array []int, n int, result *[][]int) {
if n == 1 {
dst := make([]int, len(array))
copy(dst, array[:])
*result = append(*result, dst)
} else {
for i := 0; i < n; i++ {
generateIntPermutations(array, n-1, result)
if n%2 == 0 {
// Golang allow us to do multiple assignments
array[0], array[n-1] = array[n-1], array[0]
} else {
array[i], array[n-1] = array[n-1], array[i]
}
}
}
}
numbers := []int{0, 1, 2}
var result [][]int
generateIntPermutations(numbers, len(numbers), &result)
// result -> [[0 1 2] [1 0 2] [2 1 0] [1 2 0] [2 0 1] [0 2 1]]

Answer 5

Another Working code
package permutations
import "fmt"
func AllPermutation(a []int) {
var res [][]int
calPermutation(a, &res, 0)
fmt.Println(res)
}
func calPermutation(arr []int, res *[][]int, k int) {
for i := k; i < len(arr); i++ {
swap(arr, i, k)
calPermutation(arr, res, k+1)
swap(arr, k, i)
}
if k == len(arr)-1 {
r := make([]int, len(arr))
copy(r, arr)
*res = append(*res, r)
return
}
}
func swap(arr []int, i, k int) {
arr[i], arr[k] = arr[k], arr[i]
}
//result [[1 2 3] [1 3 2] [2 1 3] [2 3 1] [3 2 1] [3 1 2]]

Answer 6

Here is another variation:
// heap algorithm
func permutations(arr []int, l int, p [][]int) [][]int {
if l == 1 { p = append(p, append([]int{}, arr...)) }
for i := 0 ; i < l ; i++ {
p = permutations(arr, l-1, p)
if l % 2 == 1 {
arr[0], arr[l-1] = arr[l-1], arr[0]
} else {
arr[i], arr[l-1] = arr[l-1], arr[i]
}
}
return p
}