Generating all permutations of a given string

GurdeepS picture GurdeepS · Nov 21, 2010 · Viewed 584.3k times · Source

What is an elegant way to find all the permutations of a string. E.g. permutation for ba, would be ba and ab, but what about longer string such as abcdefgh? Is there any Java implementation example?

Answer

SuperJulietta picture SuperJulietta · Nov 21, 2010
public static void permutation(String str) { 
    permutation("", str); 
}

private static void permutation(String prefix, String str) {
    int n = str.length();
    if (n == 0) System.out.println(prefix);
    else {
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
            permutation(prefix + str.charAt(i), str.substring(0, i) + str.substring(i+1, n));
    }
}

(via Introduction to Programming in Java)