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

下面是一个简单的Java递归解决方案:

public static ArrayList<String> permutations(String s) {
    ArrayList<String> out = new ArrayList<String>();
    if (s.length() == 1) {
        out.add(s);
        return out;
    }
    char first = s.charAt(0);
    String rest = s.substring(1);
    for (String permutation : permutations(rest)) {
        out.addAll(insertAtAllPositions(first, permutation));
    }
    return out;
}
public static ArrayList<String> insertAtAllPositions(char ch, String s) {
    ArrayList<String> out = new ArrayList<String>();
    for (int i = 0; i <= s.length(); ++i) {
        String inserted = s.substring(0, i) + ch + s.substring(i);
        out.add(inserted);
    }
    return out;
}

使用递归。

当输入是空字符串时，唯一的排列就是空字符串。尝试将字符串中的每个字母作为第一个字母，然后使用递归调用找到其余字母的所有排列。

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

class Permutation {
    private static List<String> permutation(String prefix, String str) {
        List<String> permutations = new ArrayList<>();
        int n = str.length();
        if (n == 0) {
            permutations.add(prefix);
        } else {
            for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
                permutations.addAll(permutation(prefix + str.charAt(i), str.substring(i + 1, n) + str.substring(0, i)));
            }
        }
        return permutations;
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        List<String> perms = permutation("", "abcd");

        String[] array = new String[perms.size()];
        for (int i = 0; i < perms.size(); i++) {
            array[i] = perms.get(i);
        }

        int x = array.length;

        for (final String anArray : array) {
            System.out.println(anArray);
        }
    }
}

基于Mark Byers的回答，我的python实现:

def permutations(string):
    if len(string) == 1:
        return [string]
    permutations=[]
    for i in range(len(string)):
        for perm in permutations(string[:i]+string[i+1:]):
            permutations.append(string[i] + perm)
    return permutations

这里有一个优雅的，非递归的O(n!)解:

public static StringBuilder[] permutations(String s) {
        if (s.length() == 0)
            return null;
        int length = fact(s.length());
        StringBuilder[] sb = new StringBuilder[length];
        for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) {
            sb[i] = new StringBuilder();
        }
        for (int i = 0; i < s.length(); i++) {
            char ch = s.charAt(i);
            int times = length / (i + 1);
            for (int j = 0; j < times; j++) {
                for (int k = 0; k < length / times; k++) {
                    sb[j * length / times + k].insert(k, ch);
                }
            }
        }
        return sb;
    }

使用递归。

依次尝试每个字母作为第一个字母，然后使用递归调用找到剩余字母的所有排列。 基本情况是，当输入是空字符串时，唯一的排列就是空字符串。