这段代码采用了一个简单的嵌套列表算法…

# FUNCTION getCombos: To generate all combos of an input list, consider the following sets of nested lists...
#
#           [ [ [] ] ]
#           [ [ [] ], [ [A] ] ]
#           [ [ [] ], [ [A],[B] ],         [ [A,B] ] ]
#           [ [ [] ], [ [A],[B],[C] ],     [ [A,B],[A,C],[B,C] ],                   [ [A,B,C] ] ]
#           [ [ [] ], [ [A],[B],[C],[D] ], [ [A,B],[A,C],[B,C],[A,D],[B,D],[C,D] ], [ [A,B,C],[A,B,D],[A,C,D],[B,C,D] ], [ [A,B,C,D] ] ]
#
#  There is a set of lists for each number of items that will occur in a combo (including an empty set).
#  For each additional item, begin at the back of the list by adding an empty list, then taking the set of
#  lists in the previous column (e.g., in the last list, for sets of 3 items you take the existing set of
#  3-item lists and append to it additional lists created by appending the item (4) to the lists in the
#  next smallest item count set. In this case, for the three sets of 2-items in the previous list. Repeat
#  for each set of lists back to the initial list containing just the empty list.
#

def getCombos(listIn = ['A','B','C','D','E','F'] ):
    listCombos = [ [ [] ] ]     # list of lists of combos, seeded with a list containing only the empty list
    listSimple = []             # list to contain the final returned list of items (e.g., characters)

    for item in listIn:
        listCombos.append([])   # append an emtpy list to the end for each new item added
        for index in xrange(len(listCombos)-1, 0, -1):  # set the index range to work through the list
            for listPrev in listCombos[index-1]:        # retrieve the lists from the previous column
                listCur = listPrev[:]                   # create a new temporary list object to update
                listCur.append(item)                    # add the item to the previous list to make it current
                listCombos[index].append(listCur)       # list length and append it to the current list

                itemCombo = ''                          # Create a str to concatenate list items into a str
                for item in listCur:                    # concatenate the members of the lists to create
                    itemCombo += item                   # create a string of items
                listSimple.append(itemCombo)            # add to the final output list

    return [listSimple, listCombos]
# END getCombos()

这里是另一个解决方案(一行程序)，涉及到使用itertools.combination函数，但这里我们使用了双链表理解式(而不是for循环或sum):

def combs(x):
    return [c for i in range(len(x)+1) for c in combinations(x,i)]

演示:

>>> combs([1,2,3,4])
[(), 
 (1,), (2,), (3,), (4,), 
 (1, 2), (1, 3), (1, 4), (2, 3), (2, 4), (3, 4), 
 (1, 2, 3), (1, 2, 4), (1, 3, 4), (2, 3, 4), 
 (1, 2, 3, 4)]

我想我应该为那些寻求答案的人添加这个函数，而不需要导入itertools或任何其他额外的库。

def powerSet(items):
    """
    Power set generator: get all possible combinations of a list’s elements

    Input:
        items is a list
    Output:
        returns 2**n combination lists one at a time using a generator 

    Reference: edx.org 6.00.2x Lecture 2 - Decision Trees and dynamic programming
    """

    N = len(items)
    # enumerate the 2**N possible combinations
    for i in range(2**N):
        combo = []
        for j in range(N):
            # test bit jth of integer i
            if (i >> j) % 2 == 1:
                combo.append(items[j])
        yield combo

简单Yield Generator用法:

for i in powerSet([1,2,3,4]):
    print (i, ", ",  end="")

以上用法示例的输出:

[], [1], [2], [1, 2], [3], [1, 3], [2, 3], [1, 2, 3], [4]. [1, 4], [2, 4], [1, 2, 4], [3, 4], [1, 3, 4], [2, 3, 4], [1, 2, 3, 4],

这种方法可以很容易地移植到所有支持递归的编程语言中(没有itertools，没有yield，没有列表理解):

def combs(a):
    if len(a) == 0:
        return [[]]
    cs = []
    for c in combs(a[1:]):
        cs += [c, c+[a[0]]]
    return cs

>>> combs([1,2,3,4,5])
[[], [1], [2], [2, 1], [3], [3, 1], [3, 2], ..., [5, 4, 3, 2, 1]]

下面是一个使用递归的例子:

>>> import copy
>>> def combinations(target,data):
...     for i in range(len(data)):
...         new_target = copy.copy(target)
...         new_data = copy.copy(data)
...         new_target.append(data[i])
...         new_data = data[i+1:]
...         print new_target
...         combinations(new_target,
...                      new_data)
...                      
... 
>>> target = []
>>> data = ['a','b','c','d']
>>> 
>>> combinations(target,data)
['a']
['a', 'b']
['a', 'b', 'c']
['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']
['a', 'b', 'd']
['a', 'c']
['a', 'c', 'd']
['a', 'd']
['b']
['b', 'c']
['b', 'c', 'd']
['b', 'd']
['c']
['c', 'd']
['d']

不使用itertools:

def combine(inp):
    return combine_helper(inp, [], [])


def combine_helper(inp, temp, ans):
    for i in range(len(inp)):
        current = inp[i]
        remaining = inp[i + 1:]
        temp.append(current)
        ans.append(tuple(temp))
        combine_helper(remaining, temp, ans)
        temp.pop()
    return ans


print(combine(['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']))