[Tutor] Calculating and returning possible combinations of elements from a given set

[Mark Lawrence]

On 27/07/2010 23:20, ZUXOXUS wrote:
> Hi all pythoners
>
> I've got a probably easy to answer question.
>
> Say I've got a collections of strings, e.g.: 'man', 'bat', 'super', 'ultra'.
>
> They are in a list, or in a sequence or whatever, say a bag of words
>
> And now I want to know how many couples I can do with them, and I want the
> program to show me the actual couples: 'manman', 'manbat', 'mansuper',
> 'manultra', 'batbat', 'batman', 'batsuper', etc.
>
> But hey, why building up new words from just two strings? I also want to
> know the possible combinations of three words, four words, and perhaps, why
> not, five words.
>
> So, is it easy to do?
>
> Sorry, I'm new in programing, and am probably far from being a math-master
>
> I'm clueless, I think probably the code have some FOR I IN SEQUENCE... but
> then what? I don't know how to say: take every element and paste it to
> another one from the bag, and with another one, and with another one,...
>
> If it's too complex, I dont need the whole code recipe, just need some
> clues, or perhaps a useful link
>
> Thank you very much in advance!
>
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The lazy way.
http://docs.python.org/library/itertools.html
Look for combinations().

HTH.

Mark Lawrence.