Permutations in JavaScript?

Question

I\'m trying to write a function that does the following:

• takes an array of integers as an argument (e.g. [1,2,3,4])
• creates an array of all the possib

Answer 1

This is a very nice use-case for map/reduce:

function permutations(arr) {
    return (arr.length === 1) ? arr :
    arr.reduce((acc, cv, index) => {
        let remaining = [...arr];
        remaining.splice(index, 1);
        return acc.concat(permutations(remaining).map(a => [].concat(cv,a)));
    }, []);
}

• First, we handle the base case and simply return the array if there is only on item in it
• In all other cases
  • we create an empty array
  • loop over the input-array
  • and add an array of the current value and all permutations of the remaining array [].concat(cv,a)

Answer 2

function nPr(xs, r) {
    if (!r) return [];
    return xs.reduce(function(memo, cur, i) {
        var others  = xs.slice(0,i).concat(xs.slice(i+1)),
            perms   = nPr(others, r-1),
            newElms = !perms.length ? [[cur]] :
                      perms.map(function(perm) { return [cur].concat(perm) });
        return memo.concat(newElms);
    }, []);
}

Answer 3

I had a crack at making a version of this that attempts to be concise yet readable, and purely functional programming.

function stringPermutations ([...input]) {
  if (input.length === 1) return input;

  return input
    .map((thisChar, index) => {
      const remainingChars = [...input.slice(0, index), ...input.slice(index + 1)];
      return stringPermutations(remainingChars)
        .map(remainder => thisChar + remainder);
    })
    .reduce((acc, cur) => [...acc, ...cur]);
}

Note that the argument formatting turns an input string into an array. Not sure if that's a bit too magical.. Not sure I've seen it in the wild. For real readability I'd probably instead do input = [...input] for the first line of the function.

Answer 4

This is an implementation of Heap's algorithm (similar to @le_m's), except it's recursive.

function permute_kingzee(arr,n=arr.length,out=[]) {
    if(n == 1) {
        return out.push(arr.slice());
    } else {
        for(let i=0; i<n; i++) {
            permute_kingzee(arr,n-1, out);
            let j = ( n % 2 == 0 ) ? i : 0;
            let t = arr[n-1];
            arr[n-1] = arr[j];
            arr[j] = t;
        }
        return out;
    }
}

It looks like it's quite faster too : https://jsfiddle.net/3brqzaLe/

Answer 5

If you notice, the code actually splits the chars into an array prior to do any permutation, so you simply remove the join and split operation

var permArr = [],
  usedChars = [];

function permute(input) {
  var i, ch;
  for (i = 0; i < input.length; i++) {
    ch = input.splice(i, 1)[0];
    usedChars.push(ch);
    if (input.length == 0) {
      permArr.push(usedChars.slice());
    }
    permute(input);
    input.splice(i, 0, ch);
    usedChars.pop();
  }
  return permArr
};


document.write(JSON.stringify(permute([5, 3, 7, 1])));

Answer 6

Most of the other answers do not utilize the new javascript generator functions which is a perfect solution to this type of problem. You probably only need one permutation at time in memory. Also, I prefer to generate a permutation of a range of indices as this allows me to index each permutation and jump straight to any particular permutation as well as be used to permutate any other collection.

// ES6 generator version of python itertools [permutations and combinations]
const range = function*(l) { for (let i = 0; i < l; i+=1) yield i; }
const isEmpty = arr => arr.length === 0;

const permutations = function*(a) {
    const r = arguments[1] || [];
    if (isEmpty(a)) yield r;
    for (let i of range(a.length)) {
        const aa = [...a];
        const rr = [...r, ...aa.splice(i, 1)];
        yield* permutations(aa, rr);
    }
}
console.log('permutations of ABC');
console.log(JSON.stringify([...permutations([...'ABC'])]));

const combinations = function*(a, count) {
    const r = arguments[2] || [];
    if (count) {
        count = count - 1;
        for (let i of range(a.length - count)) {
            const aa = a.slice(i);
            const rr = [...r, ...aa.splice(0, 1)];
            yield* combinations(aa, count, rr);
        }
    } else {
        yield r;
    }
}
console.log('combinations of 2 of ABC');
console.log(JSON.stringify([...combinations([...'ABC'], 2)]));



const permutator = function() {
    const range = function*(args) {
        let {begin = 0, count} = args;
        for (let i = begin; count; count--, i+=1) {
            yield i;
        }
    }
    const factorial = fact => fact ? fact * factorial(fact - 1) : 1;

    return {
        perm: function(n, permutationId) {
            const indexCount = factorial(n);
            permutationId = ((permutationId%indexCount)+indexCount)%indexCount;

            let permutation = [0];
            for (const choiceCount of range({begin: 2, count: n-1})) {
                const choice = permutationId % choiceCount;
                const lastIndex = permutation.length;

                permutation.push(choice);
                permutation = permutation.map((cv, i, orig) => 
                    (cv < choice || i == lastIndex) ? cv : cv + 1
                );

                permutationId = Math.floor(permutationId / choiceCount);
            }
            return permutation.reverse();
        },
        perms: function*(n) {
            for (let i of range({count: factorial(n)})) {
                yield this.perm(n, i);
            }
        }
    };
}();

console.log('indexing type permutator');
let i = 0;
for (let elem of permutator.perms(3)) {
  console.log(`${i}: ${elem}`);
  i+=1;
}
console.log();
console.log(`3: ${permutator.perm(3,3)}`);