def permutate(l):
    for i, x in enumerate(l):
        for y in l[i + 1:]:
            yield x, y


if __name__ == '__main__':
    print(list(permutate(list('abcd'))))
    print(list(permutate([1, 2, 3, 4])))

#[('a', 'b'), ('a', 'c'), ('a', 'd'), ('b', 'c'), ('b', 'd'), ('c', 'd')]
#[(1, 2), (1, 3), (1, 4), (2, 3), (2, 4), (3, 4)]

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)

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)

def permutation(word, first_char=None):
    if word == None or len(word) == 0: return []
    if len(word) == 1: return [word]

    result = []
    first_char = word[0]
    for sub_word in permutation(word[1:], first_char):
        result += insert(first_char, sub_word)
    return sorted(result)

def insert(ch, sub_word):
    arr = [ch + sub_word]
    for i in range(len(sub_word)):
        arr.append(sub_word[i:] + ch + sub_word[:i])
    return arr


assert permutation(None) == []
assert permutation('') == []
assert permutation('1')  == ['1']
assert permutation('12') == ['12', '21']

print permutation('abc')

输出：['abc'，'acb'，'bac'，'bca'，'cab'，'cba']

功能性风格

def addperm(x,l):
    return [ l[0:i] + [x] + l[i:]  for i in range(len(l)+1) ]

def perm(l):
    if len(l) == 0:
        return [[]]
    return [x for y in perm(l[1:]) for x in addperm(l[0],y) ]

print perm([ i for i in range(3)])

结果：

[[0, 1, 2], [1, 0, 2], [1, 2, 0], [0, 2, 1], [2, 0, 1], [2, 1, 0]]

人们确实可以对每个排列的第一个元素进行迭代，正如tzwen的答案。然而，这样编写此解决方案更有效：

def all_perms(elements):
    if len(elements) <= 1:
        yield elements  # Only permutation possible = no permutation
    else:
        # Iteration over the first element in the result permutation:
        for (index, first_elmt) in enumerate(elements):
            other_elmts = elements[:index]+elements[index+1:]
            for permutation in all_perms(other_elmts): 
                yield [first_elmt] + permutation

这个解决方案大约快了30%，显然是因为递归以len（元素）<=1而不是0结尾。它的内存效率也高得多，因为它使用了一个生成器函数（通过yield），就像Riccardo Reyes的解决方案一样。