How can I generate all permutations of an array in Perl?

What's the best (elegant, simple, efficient) way to generate all n! permutations of an array in perl?

For example, if I have an array @arr = (0, 1, 2), I want to output all permutations:

0 1 2
0 2 1
1 0 2
1 2 0
2 0 1
2 1 0

It should probably be a function that returns an iterator (lazy/delayed evaluation because n! can become so impossibly large), so it can be called like this:

my @arr = (0, 1, 2);
my $iter = getPermIter(@arr);
while (my @perm = $iter->next() ){
    print "@perm\n";
}

Answers

See perlfaq4: "How do I permute N elements of a list?"

Use the List::Permutor module on CPAN. If the list is actually an array, try the Algorithm::Permute module (also on CPAN). It's written in XS code and is very efficient:

use Algorithm::Permute;

my @array = 'a'..'d';
my $p_iterator = Algorithm::Permute->new ( \@array );

while (my @perm = $p_iterator->next) {
   print "next permutation: (@perm)\n";
}

For even faster execution, you could do:

use Algorithm::Permute;

my @array = 'a'..'d';

Algorithm::Permute::permute {
    print "next permutation: (@array)\n";
} @array;

Here's a little program that generates all permutations of all the words on each line of input. The algorithm embodied in the permute() function is discussed in Volume 4 (still unpublished) of Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming and will work on any list:

#!/usr/bin/perl -n
# Fischer-Krause ordered permutation generator

sub permute (&@) {
    my $code = shift;
    my @idx = 0..$#_;
    while ( $code->(@_[@idx]) ) {
        my $p = $#idx;
        --$p while $idx[$p-1] > $idx[$p];
        my $q = $p or return;
        push @idx, reverse splice @idx, $p;
        ++$q while $idx[$p-1] > $idx[$q];
        @idx[$p-1,$q]=@idx[$q,$p-1];
    }
}


permute { print "@_\n" } split;

The Algorithm::Loops module also provides the NextPermute and NextPermuteNum functions which efficiently find all unique permutations of an array, even if it contains duplicate values, modifying it in-place: if its elements are in reverse-sorted order then the array is reversed, making it sorted, and it returns false; otherwise the next permutation is returned.

NextPermute uses string order and NextPermuteNum numeric order, so you can enumerate all the permutations of 0..9 like this:

use Algorithm::Loops qw(NextPermuteNum);

my @list= 0..9;
do { print "@list\n" } while NextPermuteNum @list;

I suggest you use List::Permutor:

use List::Permutor;

my $permutor = List::Permutor->new( 0, 1, 2);
while ( my @permutation = $permutor->next() ) {
    print "@permutation\n";
}

You could use Algorithm::Permute and maybe Iterating Over Permutations (The Perl Journal, Fall 1998) is an interesting read for you.

I recommend looking at an algorithm for generating permutations in lexicographical order, which is how I recently solved Problem 24. When the number of items in the array grows large, it becomes expensive to store and sort permutations later on.

It looks like List::Permutor, which was suggested by Manni, generates numerically sorted permutations. That's what I'd go with using Perl. Let us know how it turns out.

Try this,

use strict;
use warnings;

print "Enter the length of the string - ";
my $n = <> + 0;

my %hash = map { $_ => 1 } glob "{0,1,2}" x $n;

foreach my $key ( keys %hash ) {
    print "$key\n";
}

Output: This will give the all possible combinations of the numbers. You can add the logic to filter out the unwanted combinations.

$ perl permute_perl.pl 
Enter the length of the string - 3
101
221
211
100
001
202
022
021
122
201
002
212
011
121
010
102
210
012
020
111
120
222
112
220
000
200
110

Take a look at Iterator::Array::Jagged.

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