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

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。

这是一个具有O(n!)时间复杂度的算法，具有纯递归和直观。

public class words {
static String combinations;
public static List<String> arrlist=new ArrayList<>();
public static void main(String[] args) {
    words obj = new words();

    String str="premandl";
    obj.getcombination(str, str.length()-1, "");
    System.out.println(arrlist);

}


public void getcombination(String str, int charIndex, String output) {

    if (str.length() == 0) {
        arrlist.add(output);
        return ;
    }

    if (charIndex == -1) {
        return ;
    }

    String character = str.toCharArray()[charIndex] + "";
    getcombination(str, --charIndex, output);

    String remaining = "";

    output = output + character;

    remaining = str.substring(0, charIndex + 1) + str.substring(charIndex + 2);

    getcombination(remaining, remaining.length() - 1, output);

}

}

//插入每个字符到数组列表中

static ArrayList al = new ArrayList();

private static void findPermutation (String str){
    for (int k = 0; k < str.length(); k++) {
        addOneChar(str.charAt(k));
    }
}

//insert one char into ArrayList
private static void addOneChar(char ch){
    String lastPerStr;
    String tempStr;
    ArrayList locAl = new ArrayList();
    for (int i = 0; i < al.size(); i ++ ){
        lastPerStr = al.get(i).toString();
        //System.out.println("lastPerStr: " + lastPerStr);
        for (int j = 0; j <= lastPerStr.length(); j++) {
            tempStr = lastPerStr.substring(0,j) + ch + 
                    lastPerStr.substring(j, lastPerStr.length());
            locAl.add(tempStr);
            //System.out.println("tempStr: " + tempStr);
        }
    }
    if(al.isEmpty()){
        al.add(ch);
    } else {
        al.clear();
        al = locAl;
    }
}

private static void printArrayList(ArrayList al){
    for (int i = 0; i < al.size(); i++) {
        System.out.print(al.get(i) + "  ");
    }
}

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;
    }
}
}

在这里和其他论坛给出的所有解决方案中，我最喜欢Mark Byers。这个描述实际上让我自己思考并编写了代码。 可惜我不能投票支持他的解决方案，因为我是新手。 无论如何，这是我对他的描述的实现

public class PermTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        String str = "abcdef";
        StringBuffer strBuf = new StringBuffer(str);
        doPerm(strBuf,0);
    }

    private static void doPerm(StringBuffer str, int index){

        if(index == str.length())
            System.out.println(str);            
        else { //recursively solve this by placing all other chars at current first pos
            doPerm(str, index+1);
            for (int i = index+1; i < str.length(); i++) {//start swapping all other chars with current first char
                swap(str,index, i);
                doPerm(str, index+1);
                swap(str,i, index);//restore back my string buffer
            }
        }
    }

    private  static void swap(StringBuffer str, int pos1, int pos2){
        char t1 = str.charAt(pos1);
        str.setCharAt(pos1, str.charAt(pos2));
        str.setCharAt(pos2, t1);
    }
}   

我更喜欢这个解决方案，而不是第一个解决方案，因为这个解决方案使用StringBuffer。我不会说我的解决方案没有创建任何临时字符串(它实际上在system.out.println中创建，其中调用StringBuffer的toString())。但我只是觉得这比第一个解决方案好太多的字符串字面值被创建。可能有些性能人员可以根据“内存”来评估这一点(对于“时间”来说，由于额外的“交换”，它已经滞后了)