这一行代码给出了所有的组合(如果原始列表/set包含n个不同的元素，则在0到n个元素之间)，并使用本机方法itertools.combination:

Python 2

from itertools import combinations

input = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']

output = sum([map(list, combinations(input, i)) for i in range(len(input) + 1)], [])

Python 3

from itertools import combinations

input = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']

output = sum([list(map(list, combinations(input, i))) for i in range(len(input) + 1)], [])

输出将是:

[[],
 ['a'],
 ['b'],
 ['c'],
 ['d'],
 ['a', 'b'],
 ['a', 'c'],
 ['a', 'd'],
 ['b', 'c'],
 ['b', 'd'],
 ['c', 'd'],
 ['a', 'b', 'c'],
 ['a', 'b', 'd'],
 ['a', 'c', 'd'],
 ['b', 'c', 'd'],
 ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']]

在网上试试吧:

http://ideone.com/COghfX

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']

我同意Dan H的观点，Ben确实要求所有的组合。itertools.combination()不会给出所有的组合。

另一个问题是，如果输入iterable很大，返回一个生成器而不是列表中的所有内容可能会更好:

iterable = range(10)
for s in xrange(len(iterable)+1):
  for comb in itertools.combinations(iterable, s):
    yield comb

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

这个怎么样?使用字符串而不是列表，但同样的事情..string可以像Python中的列表一样处理:

def comb(s, res):
    if not s: return
    res.add(s)
    for i in range(0, len(s)):
        t = s[0:i] + s[i + 1:]
        comb(t, res)

res = set()
comb('game', res) 

print(res)

如果有人正在寻找一个反向列表，就像我一样:

stuff = [1, 2, 3, 4]

def reverse(bla, y):
    for subset in itertools.combinations(bla, len(bla)-y):
        print list(subset)
    if y != len(bla):
        y += 1
        reverse(bla, y)

reverse(stuff, 1)