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]]

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()

如文档中所述

def combinations(iterable, r):
    # combinations('ABCD', 2) --> AB AC AD BC BD CD
    # combinations(range(4), 3) --> 012 013 023 123
    pool = tuple(iterable)
    n = len(pool)
    if r > n:
        return
    indices = list(range(r))
    yield tuple(pool[i] for i in indices)
    while True:
        for i in reversed(range(r)):
            if indices[i] != i + n - r:
                break
        else:
            return
        indices[i] += 1
        for j in range(i+1, r):
            indices[j] = indices[j-1] + 1
        yield tuple(pool[i] for i in indices)


x = [2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 6, 4, 7, 8, 3, 9]
for i in combinations(x, 2):
    print i

3个功能:

列出n个元素的所有组合 列出n个元素的所有组合，其中顺序不明确 所有的排列

import sys

def permutations(a):
    return combinations(a, len(a))

def combinations(a, n):
    if n == 1:
        for x in a:
            yield [x]
    else:
        for i in range(len(a)):
            for x in combinations(a[:i] + a[i+1:], n-1):
                yield [a[i]] + x

def combinationsNoOrder(a, n):
    if n == 1:
        for x in a:
            yield [x]
    else:
        for i in range(len(a)):
            for x in combinationsNoOrder(a[:i], n-1):
                yield [a[i]] + x
    
if __name__ == "__main__":
    for s in combinations(list(map(int, sys.argv[2:])), int(sys.argv[1])):
        print(s)

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']

In comments under the highly upvoted answer by @Dan H, mention is made of the powerset() recipe in the itertools documentation—including one by Dan himself. However, so far no one has posted it as an answer. Since it's probably one of the better if not the best approach to the problem—and given a little encouragement from another commenter, it's shown below. The function produces all unique combinations of the list elements of every length possible (including those containing zero and all the elements).

注意:如果略有不同，目标是只获得唯一元素的组合，将s = list(iterable)一行更改为s = list(set(iterable))以消除任何重复的元素。无论如何，iterable最终被转换为列表这一事实意味着它将与生成器一起工作(与其他几个答案不同)。

from itertools import chain, combinations

def powerset(iterable):
    "powerset([1,2,3]) --> () (1,) (2,) (3,) (1,2) (1,3) (2,3) (1,2,3)"
    s = list(iterable)  # allows duplicate elements
    return chain.from_iterable(combinations(s, r) for r in range(len(s)+1))

stuff = [1, 2, 3]
for i, combo in enumerate(powerset(stuff), 1):
    print('combo #{}: {}'.format(i, combo))

输出:

combo #1: ()
combo #2: (1,)
combo #3: (2,)
combo #4: (3,)
combo #5: (1, 2)
combo #6: (1, 3)
combo #7: (2, 3)
combo #8: (1, 2, 3)