All possible combinations of a word - Python

Question

I am making a program where you insert some letters and then the output are all the posible combinations of that letters.

For example: if the input is "ABC" the output should be "A","B","C","AB","AC","BC","ABC","ACB" and so on...

Finally, my idea is to put all that combinations in a set so that it can be intersect with another set containing a certain dictionary of english words being that intersection the ideal output

As far, my script is this one:

import random

p = list(raw_input('Insert some letters: '))

p2 = []

p3 = []
for j in range((len(p))):
    p2.append(p[j])

for i in range(len(p)):
    a = random.sample(p2,len(p))
    p3.append(str("".join(a)))
    print p3[]

Obviously, there are some errors and its not complete. Can you help me to finish or tell me which path should I take? Thanks for reading

possible duplicate of [Finding all possible permutations of a given string in python](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8306654/finding-all-possible-permutations-of-a-given-string-in-python) — 101, May 11 '15 at 04:01
@figs: This is not a duplicate. This question includes subsets, and doesn't care about order, both different from the linked question. — recursive, May 11 '15 at 04:04

Martin Konecny · Answer 1 · 2015-05-11T04:21:07.233

6

If you don't care about order, you are looking for a combination. You can use itertools.combination for this:

import itertools

items = 'ABC'
for i in range(len(items)+1):
    for combination in itertools.combinations('ABC', i): 
        print(combination)

List Comprehension version:

[combination for i in range(len(items)+1) for combination in itertools.combinations('ABC', i)]

edited May 11 '15 at 04:21

answered May 11 '15 at 04:14

Martin Konecny

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Shouldn't it be range(4)? Or even range(1, 4) to don't have empty one – Dzarafata May 11 '15 at 04:20
Yes the second example had a typo. It should be `len(items) + 1` like the first example. – Martin Konecny May 11 '15 at 04:21
In his examples He stated that He wants `"ABC","ACB" and so on...`. I think that the order matters then.. – Dzarafata May 11 '15 at 04:23
@Dzarafata - I'm assuming the asker made a small typo with "ACB", because in his comment he states he doesn't care about order. – Martin Konecny May 11 '15 at 04:25
I If think He wanted to say that he don't care if in output there is `ABC ACB` or `ACB ABC` – Dzarafata May 11 '15 at 04:29

Stefan Pochmann · Answer 2 · 2015-05-11T04:54:48.677

4

I like putting stuff like this into a nice generator function, for example:

from itertools import permutations

def words(letters):
    for n in range(1, len(letters)+1):
        yield from map(''.join, permutations(letters, n))

That can then conveniently be used for example like this:

for word in words('ABC'):
    print(word)

Or since you want it as a set:

>>> set(words('ABC'))
{'BA', 'BCA', 'CB', 'A', 'AC', 'AB', 'C', 'BC', 'CA', 'ABC', 'CBA', 'B', 'BAC', 'CAB', 'ACB'}

However, it might be a better idea to not generate this word set but go through those English words and check each whether it can be made from the given letters. Depends on which set is larger, which depends on the input letters.

edited May 11 '15 at 04:54

answered May 11 '15 at 04:26

Stefan Pochmann

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'' is considered a subset of 'ABC'. May want to range from `0`. – Martin Konecny May 11 '15 at 04:31
@MartinKonecny He didn't say he wants all subsets, and his list looks like he *doesn't* want the empty word. – Stefan Pochmann May 11 '15 at 04:37

Дмитро Олександрович · Answer 3 · 2018-10-04T19:38:07.583

Pity I can not do +1 to Stefan. I have edited Stefan's genius answer(to my purpose):

from itertools import permutations

def words(letters):
    yield from map(''.join, permutations(letters, len(letters)))

result = set()
for word in words('algorithm'):
    result.add(word)

print(f' There are {len(result)} combinations')

for i, each in enumerate(result):
    if i%5 == 0 and input(''):
        break
    print(each)

It makes permutations of full length.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 18 '20 at 17:56

for all small alphabet combinations <=8 digits:

words = ['a','b','c','d','e','f','g','h','i','j','k','l','m','n','o','p','q','r','s','t','u','v','w','x','y','z']
for a in words:
    print(a)
    for b in words:
        print(a,b)
        for c in words:
            print(a,b,c)
            for d in words:
                print(a,b,c,d)
                for e in words:
                    print(a,b,c,d,e)
                    for f in words:
                        print(a,b,c,d,e,f)
                        for g in words:
                            print(a,b,c,d,e,f,g)
                            for h in words:
                                print(a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h)

All possible combinations of a word - Python

4 Answers4