I am working on a code in Python 2 that partitions a set of 13 elements using integer partitions, then evaluating the different combinations they can have (order does not matter). I have seen the ways people do this by using recursive functions to calculate every partition in a set retroactively, but for what I'm working on I'm taking a different approach.
I'm working with the logic that the different ways a set can be partitioned is determined by the integer partitions of a set. For a set of 4 elements, it can be partitioned in these ways:
[1,1,1,1]
[1,1,2]
[2,2]
[1,3]
[4]
Every number stands for the length of a subset in the partition. Using this info, I can then calculate all of the combinations that can be used with these different integer partitions. If I add the number of combinations from each partition together, I should receive the Bell number (the number of possible partitions in a set). For a list of 4 elements, the Bell number should be 15.
My code runs through the subset lengths in each partition, sets the length of the set to n and the subset length to r, then calculates the combinations in the specific subset. When it goes to the next subset, it subtracts the previous r from n to account for it lessening the amount of combinations available, as n gets smaller when a subset is already defined.
My code, however, is lackluster. When inputting 4 as the length of the set, it outputs 16 (instead of 15). When inputting 5, it outputs 48 (instead of 52). When inputting 13, it outputs 102,513 (instead of 27,644,437). I need it to be exact rather than an estimate.
This is in part because of if elem != 1: not properly accounting for a list of all ones or a list of one subset. It's also in part because it doesn't account for repeats of a combination when appearing in a subset. In [2,2] for a list of 4 elements, it considers the subset to contain 6 combinations when in reality it contains 3.
I'm stuck on how to solve this issue, as I only know enough Python to get by. The way the code currently outputs is how I prefer it to output, obviously without the errors.
The recursive function that calculates the integer partitions is from Nicolas Blanc, and the rest was coded by myself. Important links: Bell number, Partition of a set
import math
in_par = []
stack = []
bell = 0
def partitions(remainder, start_number = 1):
if remainder == 0:
in_par.append(list(stack))
#print stack
else:
for nb_to_add in range(start_number, remainder+1):
stack.append(nb_to_add)
partitions(remainder - nb_to_add, nb_to_add)
stack.pop()
x = partitions(13) # <------- input element count here
for part in in_par:
part.reverse()
combinations = 0
n = 13 # <------- input element count here
for i,elem in enumerate(part):
r = elem
combo = 0
if elem != 1:
if i != (len(part) - 1):
combo = math.factorial(n) / (math.factorial(r) * math.factorial(n-r))
n = n - elem
combinations = combinations + combo
bell = bell + combinations
part.append([combinations])
print part
#print str(bell)
print "Bell Number: " + str(bell)
