让我试着用Kotlin来解决这个问题:

fun <T> List<T>.permutations(): List<List<T>> {
    //escape case
    if (this.isEmpty()) return emptyList()

    if (this.size == 1) return listOf(this)

    if (this.size == 2) return listOf(listOf(this.first(), this.last()), listOf(this.last(), this.first()))

    //recursive case
    return this.flatMap { lastItem ->
        this.minus(lastItem).permutations().map { it.plus(lastItem) }
    }
}

核心概念:将长链表分解成小链表+递归

长答案与示例列表[1,2,3,4]:

即使是一个4种组合的列表，在脑海中列出所有可能的排列已经有点令人困惑了，我们需要做的就是避免这种情况。我们很容易理解如何对大小为0、1和2的列表进行排列，因此我们所需要做的就是将它们分解为这些大小中的任何一个，并将它们正确地组合起来。想象一台头奖机器:这个算法将从右向左旋转，然后写下

当列表大小为0或1时，返回空/列表为1 当列表大小为2时处理(例如[3,4])，并生成2个排列([3,4]& [4,3]) 对于每一项，将其标记为最后一项中的最后一项，并找到列表中其余项目的所有排列。(例如，把[4]放在桌子上，把[1,2,3]重新排列) 现在对它的子元素进行所有的排列，把它自己放回列表的末尾(例如:[1,2,3][，4]，[1,3,2][，4]，[2,3,1][，4]，…)

/** Returns an array list containing all
 * permutations of the characters in s. */
public static ArrayList<String> permute(String s) {
    ArrayList<String> perms = new ArrayList<>();
    int slen = s.length();
    if (slen > 0) {
        // Add the first character from s to the perms array list.
        perms.add(Character.toString(s.charAt(0)));

        // Repeat for all additional characters in s.
        for (int i = 1;  i < slen;  ++i) {

            // Get the next character from s.
            char c = s.charAt(i);

            // For each of the strings currently in perms do the following:
            int size = perms.size();
            for (int j = 0;  j < size;  ++j) {

                // 1. remove the string
                String p = perms.remove(0);
                int plen = p.length();

                // 2. Add plen + 1 new strings to perms.  Each new string
                //    consists of the removed string with the character c
                //    inserted into it at a unique location.
                for (int k = 0;  k <= plen;  ++k) {
                    perms.add(p.substring(0, k) + c + p.substring(k));
                }
            }
        }
    }
    return perms;
}

没有递归的Java实现

public Set<String> permutate(String s){
    Queue<String> permutations = new LinkedList<String>();
    Set<String> v = new HashSet<String>();
    permutations.add(s);

    while(permutations.size()!=0){
        String str = permutations.poll();
        if(!v.contains(str)){
            v.add(str);
            for(int i = 0;i<str.length();i++){
                String c = String.valueOf(str.charAt(i));
                permutations.add(str.substring(i+1) + c +  str.substring(0,i));
            }
        }
    }
    return v;
}

倒计时Quickperm算法的通用实现，表示#1(可伸缩，非递归)。

/**
 * Generate permutations based on the
 * Countdown <a href="http://quickperm.org/">Quickperm algorithm</>.
 */
public static <T> List<List<T>> generatePermutations(List<T> list) {
    List<T> in = new ArrayList<>(list);
    List<List<T>> out = new ArrayList<>(factorial(list.size()));

    int n = list.size();
    int[] p = new int[n +1];
    for (int i = 0; i < p.length; i ++) {
        p[i] = i;
    }
    int i = 0;
    while (i < n) {
        p[i]--;
        int j = 0;
        if (i % 2 != 0) { // odd?
            j = p[i];
        }
        // swap
        T iTmp = in.get(i);
        in.set(i, in.get(j));
        in.set(j, iTmp);

        i = 1;
        while (p[i] == 0){
            p[i] = i;
            i++;
        }
        out.add(new ArrayList<>(in));
    }
    return out;
}

private static int factorial(int num) {
    int count = num;
    while (num != 1) {
        count *= --num;
    }
    return count;
}

它需要list，因为泛型不能很好地使用数组。

//Rotate and create words beginning with all letter possible and push to stack 1

//Read from stack1 and for each word create words with other letters at the next location by rotation and so on 

/*  eg : man

    1. push1 - man, anm, nma
    2. pop1 - nma ,  push2 - nam,nma
       pop1 - anm ,  push2 - amn,anm
       pop1 - man ,  push2 - mna,man
*/

public class StringPermute {

    static String str;
    static String word;
    static int top1 = -1;
    static int top2 = -1;
    static String[] stringArray1;
    static String[] stringArray2;
    static int strlength = 0;

    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        System.out.println("Enter String : ");
        InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader(System.in);
        BufferedReader bfr = new BufferedReader(isr);
        str = bfr.readLine();
        word = str;
        strlength = str.length();
        int n = 1;
        for (int i = 1; i <= strlength; i++) {
            n = n * i;
        }
        stringArray1 = new String[n];
        stringArray2 = new String[n];
        push(word, 1);
        doPermute();
        display();
    }

    public static void push(String word, int x) {
        if (x == 1)
            stringArray1[++top1] = word;
        else
            stringArray2[++top2] = word;
    }

    public static String pop(int x) {
        if (x == 1)
            return stringArray1[top1--];
        else
            return stringArray2[top2--];
    }

    public static void doPermute() {

        for (int j = strlength; j >= 2; j--)
            popper(j);

    }

    public static void popper(int length) {
        // pop from stack1 , rotate each word n times and push to stack 2
        if (top1 > -1) {
            while (top1 > -1) {
                word = pop(1);
                for (int j = 0; j < length; j++) {
                    rotate(length);
                    push(word, 2);
                }
            }
        }
        // pop from stack2 , rotate each word n times w.r.t position and push to
        // stack 1
        else {
            while (top2 > -1) {
                word = pop(2);
                for (int j = 0; j < length; j++) {
                    rotate(length);
                    push(word, 1);
                }
            }
        }

    }

    public static void rotate(int position) {
        char[] charstring = new char[100];
        for (int j = 0; j < word.length(); j++)
            charstring[j] = word.charAt(j);

        int startpos = strlength - position;
        char temp = charstring[startpos];
        for (int i = startpos; i < strlength - 1; i++) {
            charstring[i] = charstring[i + 1];
        }
        charstring[strlength - 1] = temp;
        word = new String(charstring).trim();
    }

    public static void display() {
        int top;
        if (top1 > -1) {
            while (top1 > -1)
                System.out.println(stringArray1[top1--]);
        } else {
            while (top2 > -1)
                System.out.println(stringArray2[top2--]);
        }
    }
}

以下是我在《破解编程面试》(P54)一书中提出的解决方案:

/**
 * List permutations of a string.
 * 
 * @param s the input string
 * @return  the list of permutations
 */
public static ArrayList<String> permutation(String s) {
    // The result
    ArrayList<String> res = new ArrayList<String>();
    // If input string's length is 1, return {s}
    if (s.length() == 1) {
        res.add(s);
    } else if (s.length() > 1) {
        int lastIndex = s.length() - 1;
        // Find out the last character
        String last = s.substring(lastIndex);
        // Rest of the string
        String rest = s.substring(0, lastIndex);
        // Perform permutation on the rest string and
        // merge with the last character
        res = merge(permutation(rest), last);
    }
    return res;
}

/**
 * @param list a result of permutation, e.g. {"ab", "ba"}
 * @param c    the last character
 * @return     a merged new list, e.g. {"cab", "acb" ... }
 */
public static ArrayList<String> merge(ArrayList<String> list, String c) {
    ArrayList<String> res = new ArrayList<>();
    // Loop through all the string in the list
    for (String s : list) {
        // For each string, insert the last character to all possible positions
        // and add them to the new list
        for (int i = 0; i <= s.length(); ++i) {
            String ps = new StringBuffer(s).insert(i, c).toString();
            res.add(ps);
        }
    }
    return res;
}

字符串"abcd"的运行输出:

第一步:合并[a]和b: [ba, ab] 步骤2:Merge [ba, ab]和c: [cba, bca, bac, cab, acb, abc] 第三步:Merge [cba, bca, bac, cab, acb, abc]和d: [dcba, cdba, cbad, cbca, bdcad