使用标准库中的itertools.permutations：

import itertools
list(itertools.permutations([1, 2, 3]))

从这里改编的是itertools.permutations如何实现的演示：

def permutations(elements):
    if len(elements) <= 1:
        yield elements
        return
    for perm in permutations(elements[1:]):
        for i in range(len(elements)):
            # nb elements[0:1] works in both string and list contexts
            yield perm[:i] + elements[0:1] + perm[i:]

itertools.permutations文档中列出了两种替代方法

def permutations(iterable, r=None):
    # permutations('ABCD', 2) --> AB AC AD BA BC BD CA CB CD DA DB DC
    # permutations(range(3)) --> 012 021 102 120 201 210
    pool = tuple(iterable)
    n = len(pool)
    r = n if r is None else r
    if r > n:
        return
    indices = range(n)
    cycles = range(n, n-r, -1)
    yield tuple(pool[i] for i in indices[:r])
    while n:
        for i in reversed(range(r)):
            cycles[i] -= 1
            if cycles[i] == 0:
                indices[i:] = indices[i+1:] + indices[i:i+1]
                cycles[i] = n - i
            else:
                j = cycles[i]
                indices[i], indices[-j] = indices[-j], indices[i]
                yield tuple(pool[i] for i in indices[:r])
                break
        else:
            return

另一个基于itertools.product：

def permutations(iterable, r=None):
    pool = tuple(iterable)
    n = len(pool)
    r = n if r is None else r
    for indices in product(range(n), repeat=r):
        if len(set(indices)) == r:
            yield tuple(pool[i] for i in indices)

该算法是最有效的算法，它避免了递归调用中的数组传递和操作，适用于Python 2、3：

def permute(items):
    length = len(items)
    def inner(ix=[]):
        do_yield = len(ix) == length - 1
        for i in range(0, length):
            if i in ix: #avoid duplicates
                continue
            if do_yield:
                yield tuple([items[y] for y in ix + [i]])
            else:
                for p in inner(ix + [i]):
                    yield p
    return inner()

用法：

for p in permute((1,2,3)):
    print(p)

(1, 2, 3)
(1, 3, 2)
(2, 1, 3)
(2, 3, 1)
(3, 1, 2)
(3, 2, 1)

如果有人喜欢这个丑陋的单行线（虽然只适用于字符串）：

def p(a):
    return a if len(a) == 1 else [[a[i], *j] for i in range(len(a)) for j in p(a[:i] + a[i + 1:])]

在我看来，一个很明显的方式可能是：

def permutList(l):
    if not l:
            return [[]]
    res = []
    for e in l:
            temp = l[:]
            temp.remove(e)
            res.extend([[e] + r for r in permutList(temp)])

    return res

生成所有可能的排列

我正在使用python3.4：

def calcperm(arr, size):
    result = set([()])
    for dummy_idx in range(size):
        temp = set()
        for dummy_lst in result:
            for dummy_outcome in arr:
                if dummy_outcome not in dummy_lst:
                    new_seq = list(dummy_lst)
                    new_seq.append(dummy_outcome)
                    temp.add(tuple(new_seq))
        result = temp
    return result

测试用例：

lst = [1, 2, 3, 4]
#lst = ["yellow", "magenta", "white", "blue"]
seq = 2
final = calcperm(lst, seq)
print(len(final))
print(final)

from __future__ import print_function

def perm(n):
    p = []
    for i in range(0,n+1):
        p.append(i)
    while True:
        for i in range(1,n+1):
            print(p[i], end=' ')
        print("")
        i = n - 1
        found = 0
        while (not found and i>0):
            if p[i]<p[i+1]:
                found = 1
            else:
                i = i - 1
        k = n
        while p[i]>p[k]:
            k = k - 1
        aux = p[i]
        p[i] = p[k]
        p[k] = aux
        for j in range(1,(n-i)/2+1):
            aux = p[i+j]
            p[i+j] = p[n-j+1]
            p[n-j+1] = aux
        if not found:
            break

perm(5)