Iterating order combinations
I'm having trouble figuring out how to implement this algorithm. The program I'm working on currently works fine but I need to implement this algorithm to get my data processing optimal.
What I'm trying to do is simply iterate every possible order combination of a given set of objects. So let's say I have 5 tiles (A, B, C, D, E) and they are arranged sequentially. I want to loop over the number of different order combinations that are possible using these 5 tiles (or 'n' tiles in algorithmic form).
So you'd get an output like this:
A, B, C, D, E
B, C, D, E, A
C, D, E, A, B
E, D, C, B, A
... and so on.
Picture the tiles as Enums or Objects within a program and their order position as an index into an array. I'm not interested in duplicating anything (A, A, A, B, B) - it's literally a shuffling of existing tiles so they remain unique.
I've been pulling my hair out on this all day - can anyone solve this?
Thanks.
Re: Iterating order combinations
See this link,
or this one for more details about implementation of permutation generation (should you wish to implement it and not use the STL algorithm).
Regards,
Zachm
Re: Iterating order combinations
Excellent! Those links proved very useful and I have it all working now :p
Thanks, your post was much appreciated.