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。

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)

//循环'整个字符数组，并保持'i'作为你的排列的基础，并像你交换[ab, ba]一样继续寻找组合

public class Permutation {
    //Act as a queue
    private List<Character> list;
    //To remove the duplicates
    private Set<String> set = new HashSet<String>();

    public Permutation(String s) {
        list = new LinkedList<Character>();
        int len = s.length();
        for(int i = 0; i < len; i++) {
            list.add(s.charAt(i));
        }
    }

    public List<String> getStack(Character c, List<Character> list) {
        LinkedList<String> stack = new LinkedList<String>();
        stack.add(""+c);
        for(Character ch: list) {
            stack.add(""+ch);
        }

        return stack;
    }

    public String printCombination(String s1, String s2) {
        //S1 will be a single character
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
        String[] strArr = s2.split(",");
        for(String s: strArr) {
            sb.append(s).append(s1);
            sb.append(",");
        }       
        for(String s: strArr) {
            sb.append(s1).append(s);
            sb.append(",");
        }

        return sb.toString();
    }

    public void printPerumtation() {
        int cnt = list.size();

        for(int i = 0; i < cnt; i++) {
            Character c = list.get(0);
            list.remove(0);
            List<String> stack = getStack(c, list);

            while(stack.size() > 1) {
                //Remove the top two elements
                String s2 = stack.remove(stack.size() - 1);
                String s1 = stack.remove(stack.size() - 1);
                String comS = printCombination(s1, s2);
                stack.add(comS);
            }

            String[] perms = (stack.remove(0)).split(",");
            for(String perm: perms) {
                set.add(perm);
            }

            list.add(c);
        }

        for(String s: set) {
            System.out.println(s);
        }
    }
}

这是一个更快的解决方案，因为它不受字符串连接计算复杂度O(n^2)的影响。另一方面它是无循环的，完全递归的

public static void main(String[] args) {
    permutation("ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ");
}

private static void permutation(String str) {
    char[] stringArray = str.toCharArray();
    printPermutation(stringArray, 0, stringArray.length, 0, 1);
}

private static void printPermutation(char[] string, int loopCounter, int length, int indexFrom, int indexTo) {
    // Stop condition
    if (loopCounter == length)
        return;

    /* 
     When reaching the end of the array:
     1- Reset loop indices.
     2- Increase length counter. 
    */ 
    if (indexTo == length) {
        indexFrom = 0;
        indexTo = 1;
        ++loopCounter;
    }

    // Print.
    System.out.println(string);

    // Swap from / to indices.
    char temp = string[indexFrom];
    string[indexFrom] = string[indexTo];
    string[indexTo] = temp;

    // Go for next iteration.
    printPermutation(string, loopCounter, length, ++indexFrom, ++indexTo);
}

另一种简单的方法是遍历字符串，选择尚未使用的字符并将其放入缓冲区，继续循环，直到缓冲区大小等于字符串长度。我更喜欢这个回溯跟踪解决方案，因为:

容易理解 容易避免重复 输出是排序的

下面是java代码:

List<String> permute(String str) {
  if (str == null) {
    return null;
  }

  char[] chars = str.toCharArray();
  boolean[] used = new boolean[chars.length];

  List<String> res = new ArrayList<String>();
  StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

  Arrays.sort(chars);

  helper(chars, used, sb, res);

  return res;
}

void helper(char[] chars, boolean[] used, StringBuilder sb, List<String> res) {
  if (sb.length() == chars.length) {
    res.add(sb.toString());
    return;
  }

  for (int i = 0; i < chars.length; i++) {
    // avoid duplicates
    if (i > 0 && chars[i] == chars[i - 1] && !used[i - 1]) {
      continue;
    }

    // pick the character that has not used yet
    if (!used[i]) {
      used[i] = true;
      sb.append(chars[i]);

      helper(chars, used, sb, res);

      // back tracking
      sb.deleteCharAt(sb.length() - 1);
      used[i] = false;
    }
  }
}

str输入:1231

输出列表:{1123,1132,1213,1231,1312,1321,2113,2131,2311,3112,3121,3211}

注意，输出是排序的，没有重复的结果。