intelligently generating combinations of combinations

Question

Let\'s say I have a class of 30 students and want generate every possible way in which they can be partitioned into groups of 5 (order is irrelevant).

I know how to

Answer 1

This is an old question, but anyway, for the record, that's how I would it in Ruby:

class Array
  def groups_of_size(n)
    Enumerator.new do |yielder|
      if self.empty?
        yielder.yield([])
      else
        self.drop(1).combination(n-1).map { |vs| [self.first] + vs }.each do |values|
          (self - values).groups_of_size(n).each do |group|
            yielder.yield([values] + group)
          end   
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

I use an enumerator because the output can grow very quickly, a strict output (an array for example) wouldn't be useful. A usage example:

>> pp [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5].groups_of_size(3).to_a
=> 
[[[0, 1, 2], [3, 4, 5]],
 [[0, 1, 3], [2, 4, 5]],
 [[0, 1, 4], [2, 3, 5]],
 [[0, 1, 5], [2, 3, 4]],
 [[0, 2, 3], [1, 4, 5]],
 [[0, 2, 4], [1, 3, 5]],
 [[0, 2, 5], [1, 3, 4]],
 [[0, 3, 4], [1, 2, 5]],
 [[0, 3, 5], [1, 2, 4]],
 [[0, 4, 5], [1, 2, 3]]]