Combination of unique elements without repetition - c++

Question

Elements : a b c
all combinations in such a way:abcabacbcabc
Formula to get total number of combinations of unique elements without repetition = 2^n - 1 (where n is the number of unique elements)
In our case top: 2^3 - 1 = 7
Another formula to get the combinations with specific length = n!/(r! * (n - r)!) (where n= nb of unique items and r=length)
Example for our the above case with r=2 : 3!/(2! * 1!) = 3 which is ab ac bc
Is there any algorithm or function that gets all of the 7 combinations?
I searched a lot but all i can find is one that gets the combinations with specific length only.
UPDATE:
This is what I have so far but it only gets combination with specific length:
void recur(string arr[], string out, int i, int n, int k, bool &flag)
{
flag = 1;
// invalid input
if (k > n)
return;
// base case: combination size is k
if (k == 0) {
flag = 0;
cout << out << endl;
return;
}
// start from next index till last index
for (int j = i; j < n; j++)
{
recur(arr, out + " " + arr[j], j + 1, n, k - 1,flag);
}
}

Answer 1

The best algorithm I've ever find to resolve this problem is to use bitwise operator. You simply need to start counting in binary. 1's in binary number means that you have to show number.
e.g.
in case of string "abc"
number , binary , string
1 , 001 , c
2 , 010 , b
3 , 011 , bc
4 , 100 , a
5 , 101 , ac
6 , 110 , ab
7 , 111 , abc
This is the best solution I've ever find. you can do it simply with loop. there will not be any memory issue.
here is the code
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <math.h>
#include<stdio.h>
#include <cmath>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
string s("abcd");
int condition = pow(2, s.size());
for( int i = 1 ; i < condition ; i++){
int temp = i;
for(int j = 0 ; j < s.size() ; j++){
if (temp & 1){ // this condition will always give you the most right bit of temp.
cout << s[j];
}
temp = temp >> 1; //this statement shifts temp to the right by 1 bit.
}
cout<<endl;
}
return 0;
}

Answer 2

Do a simple exhaustive search.
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
void exhaustiveSearch(const string& s, int i, string t = "")
{
if (i == s.size())
cout << t << endl;
else
{
exhaustiveSearch(s, i + 1, t);
exhaustiveSearch(s, i + 1, t + s[i]);
}
}
int main()
{
string s("abc");
exhaustiveSearch(s, 0);
}
Complexity: O(2^n)

Answer 3

Here's an answer using recursion, which will take any number of elements as strings:
#include <vector>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
void make_combos(const std::string& start,
const std::vector<std::string>& input,
std::vector<std::string>& output)
{
for(size_t i = 0; i < input.size(); ++i)
{
auto new_string = start + input[i];
output.push_back(new_string);
if (i + 1 == input.size()) break;
std::vector<std::string> new_input(input.begin() + 1 + i, input.end());
make_combos(new_string, new_input, output);
}
}
Now you can do:
int main()
{
std::string s {};
std::vector<std::string> output {};
std::vector<std::string> input {"a", "b", "c"};
make_combos(s, input, output);
for(auto i : output) std::cout << i << std::endl;
std::cout << "There are " << output.size()
<< " unique combinations for this input." << std::endl;
return 0;
}
This outputs:
a
ab
abc
ac
b
bc
c
There are 7 unique combinations for this input.