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

作为Python生成器，带有现代类型提示:

from typing import Iterator


def permutations(string: str, prefix: str = '') -> Iterator[str]:
    if len(string) == 0:
        yield prefix
    for i, character in enumerate(string):
        yield from permutations(string[:i] + string[i + 1:], prefix + character)


for p in permutations('abcd'):
    print(p)

基于Heap算法的我的实现:

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

public class PermutationString {
public static List<String> permute(char[] str, int n) {
    List<String> permutations = new ArrayList<>();
    if (n == 1) {
        permutations.add(new String(str));
    }
    else {
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
            permutations.addAll(permute(str, n-1));
            if (n % 2 == 0) {
                swap(str, i, n-1);
            }
            else {
                swap(str, 0, n-1);
            }
        }
    }
    return permutations;
}


public static void swap(char[] str, int i, int j) {
    char temp = str[i];
    str[i] = str[j];
    str[j] = temp;
}

public static void main(String[] args) {

    List<String> permutations = permute("abcdefgh".toCharArray(), 8);

    System.out.println(permutations);

}
}

时间复杂度为O(n!* n)， O(n)为空间复杂度。

其中一个简单的解决方案是使用两个指针继续递归地交换字符。

public static void main(String[] args)
{
    String str="abcdefgh";
    perm(str);
}
public static void perm(String str)
{  char[] char_arr=str.toCharArray();
    helper(char_arr,0);
}
public static void helper(char[] char_arr, int i)
{
    if(i==char_arr.length-1)
    {
        // print the shuffled string 
            String str="";
            for(int j=0; j<char_arr.length; j++)
            {
                str=str+char_arr[j];
            }
            System.out.println(str);
    }
    else
    {
    for(int j=i; j<char_arr.length; j++)
    {
        char tmp = char_arr[i];
        char_arr[i] = char_arr[j];
        char_arr[j] = tmp;
        helper(char_arr,i+1);
        char tmp1 = char_arr[i];
        char_arr[i] = char_arr[j];
        char_arr[j] = tmp1;
    }
}
}

public static void permutation(String str) { 
    permutation("", str); 
}

private static void permutation(String prefix, String str) {
    int n = str.length();
    if (n == 0) System.out.println(prefix);
    else {
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
            permutation(prefix + str.charAt(i), str.substring(0, i) + str.substring(i+1, n));
    }
}

(通过Java编程入门)

如果有人想要生成排列来做一些事情，而不是通过void方法打印它们:

static List<int[]> permutations(int n) {

    class Perm {
        private final List<int[]> permutations = new ArrayList<>();

        private void perm(int[] array, int step) {
            if (step == 1) permutations.add(array.clone());
            else for (int i = 0; i < step; i++) {
                perm(array, step - 1);
                int j = (step % 2 == 0) ? i : 0;
                swap(array, step - 1, j);
            }
        }

        private void swap(int[] array, int i, int j) {
            int buffer = array[i];
            array[i] = array[j];
            array[j] = buffer;
        }

    }

    int[] nVector  = new int[n];
    for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) nVector [i] = i;

    Perm perm = new Perm();
    perm.perm(nVector, n);
    return perm.permutations;

}