Clojure版本:

(defn comb [k l]
  (if (= 1 k) (map vector l)
      (apply concat
             (map-indexed
              #(map (fn [x] (conj x %2))
                    (comb (dec k) (drop (inc %1) l)))
              l))))

假设你的字母数组是这样的:"ABCDEFGH"。你有三个下标(i, j, k)来表示你要用哪个字母来表示当前单词。

A B C D E F G H
^ ^ ^
i j k

首先你改变k，所以下一步看起来像这样:

A B C D E F G H
^ ^   ^
i j   k

如果你到达终点，你继续改变j和k。

A B C D E F G H
^   ^ ^
i   j k

A B C D E F G H
^   ^   ^
i   j   k

一旦j达到G, i也开始变化。

A B C D E F G H
  ^ ^ ^
  i j k

A B C D E F G H
  ^ ^   ^
  i j   k
...

function initializePointers($cnt) {
    $pointers = [];

    for($i=0; $i<$cnt; $i++) {
        $pointers[] = $i;
    }

    return $pointers;     
}

function incrementPointers(&$pointers, &$arrLength) {
    for($i=0; $i<count($pointers); $i++) {
        $currentPointerIndex = count($pointers) - $i - 1;
        $currentPointer = $pointers[$currentPointerIndex];

        if($currentPointer < $arrLength - $i - 1) {
           ++$pointers[$currentPointerIndex];

           for($j=1; ($currentPointerIndex+$j)<count($pointers); $j++) {
                $pointers[$currentPointerIndex+$j] = $pointers[$currentPointerIndex]+$j;
           }

           return true;
        }
    }

    return false;
}

function getDataByPointers(&$arr, &$pointers) {
    $data = [];

    for($i=0; $i<count($pointers); $i++) {
        $data[] = $arr[$pointers[$i]];
    }

    return $data;
}

function getCombinations($arr, $cnt)
{
    $len = count($arr);
    $result = [];
    $pointers = initializePointers($cnt);

    do {
        $result[] = getDataByPointers($arr, $pointers);
    } while(incrementPointers($pointers, count($arr)));

    return $result;
}

$result = getCombinations([0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5], 3);
print_r($result);

基于https://stackoverflow.com/a/127898/2628125，但更抽象，适用于任何大小的指针。

Lisp宏为所有值r(每次取)生成代码

(defmacro txaat (some-list taken-at-a-time)
  (let* ((vars (reverse (truncate-list '(a b c d e f g h i j) taken-at-a-time))))
    `(
      ,@(loop for i below taken-at-a-time 
           for j in vars 
           with nested = nil 
           finally (return nested) 
           do
             (setf 
              nested 
              `(loop for ,j from
                    ,(if (< i (1- (length vars)))
                         `(1+ ,(nth (1+ i) vars))
                         0)
                  below (- (length ,some-list) ,i)
                    ,@(if (equal i 0) 
                          `(collect 
                               (list
                                ,@(loop for k from (1- taken-at-a-time) downto 0
                                     append `((nth ,(nth k vars) ,some-list)))))
                          `(append ,nested))))))))

So,

CL-USER> (macroexpand-1 '(txaat '(a b c d) 1))
(LOOP FOR A FROM 0 TO (- (LENGTH '(A B C D)) 1)
    COLLECT (LIST (NTH A '(A B C D))))
T
CL-USER> (macroexpand-1 '(txaat '(a b c d) 2))
(LOOP FOR A FROM 0 TO (- (LENGTH '(A B C D)) 2)
      APPEND (LOOP FOR B FROM (1+ A) TO (- (LENGTH '(A B C D)) 1)
                   COLLECT (LIST (NTH A '(A B C D)) (NTH B '(A B C D)))))
T
CL-USER> (macroexpand-1 '(txaat '(a b c d) 3))
(LOOP FOR A FROM 0 TO (- (LENGTH '(A B C D)) 3)
      APPEND (LOOP FOR B FROM (1+ A) TO (- (LENGTH '(A B C D)) 2)
                   APPEND (LOOP FOR C FROM (1+ B) TO (- (LENGTH '(A B C D)) 1)
                                COLLECT (LIST (NTH A '(A B C D))
                                              (NTH B '(A B C D))
                                              (NTH C '(A B C D))))))
T

CL-USER> 

And,

CL-USER> (txaat '(a b c d) 1)
((A) (B) (C) (D))
CL-USER> (txaat '(a b c d) 2)
((A B) (A C) (A D) (B C) (B D) (C D))
CL-USER> (txaat '(a b c d) 3)
((A B C) (A B D) (A C D) (B C D))
CL-USER> (txaat '(a b c d) 4)
((A B C D))
CL-USER> (txaat '(a b c d) 5)
NIL
CL-USER> (txaat '(a b c d) 0)
NIL
CL-USER> 

void combine(char a[], int N, int M, int m, int start, char result[]) {
    if (0 == m) {
        for (int i = M - 1; i >= 0; i--)
            std::cout << result[i];
        std::cout << std::endl;
        return;
    }
    for (int i = start; i < (N - m + 1); i++) {
        result[m - 1] = a[i];
        combine(a, N, M, m-1, i+1, result);
    }
}

void combine(char a[], int N, int M) {
    char *result = new char[M];
    combine(a, N, M, M, 0, result);
    delete[] result;
}

在第一个函数中，m表示还需要选择多少个，start表示必须从数组中的哪个位置开始选择。

下面是c++中的迭代算法，它不使用STL，也不使用递归，也不使用条件嵌套循环。这样更快，它不执行任何元素交换，也不会给堆栈带来递归负担，还可以通过分别用mallloc()、free()和printf()替换new、delete和std::cout轻松地移植到ANSI C。

如果你想用不同或更长的字母显示元素，那么改变*字母参数以指向不同于"abcdefg"的字符串。

void OutputArrayChar(unsigned int* ka, size_t n, const char *alphabet) {
    for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
        std::cout << alphabet[ka[i]] << ",";
    std::cout << endl;
}
    

void GenCombinations(const unsigned int N, const unsigned int K, const char *alphabet) {
    unsigned int *ka = new unsigned int [K];  //dynamically allocate an array of UINTs
    unsigned int ki = K-1;                    //Point ki to the last elemet of the array
    ka[ki] = N-1;                             //Prime the last elemet of the array.
    
    while (true) {
        unsigned int tmp = ka[ki];  //Optimization to prevent reading ka[ki] repeatedly

        while (ki)                  //Fill to the left with consecutive descending values (blue squares)
            ka[--ki] = --tmp;
        OutputArrayChar(ka, K, alphabet);
    
        while (--ka[ki] == ki) {    //Decrement and check if the resulting value equals the index (bright green squares)
            OutputArrayChar(ka, K, alphabet);
            if (++ki == K) {      //Exit condition (all of the values in the array are flush to the left)
                delete[] ka;
                return;
            }                   
        }
    }
}
    

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    GenCombinations(7, 4, "abcdefg");
    return 0;
}

重要提示:字母参数*必须指向至少N个字符的字符串。你也可以传递一个在其他地方定义的字符串地址。

组合:从“7选4”中选择。

Python中的简短示例:

def comb(sofar, rest, n):
    if n == 0:
        print sofar
    else:
        for i in range(len(rest)):
            comb(sofar + rest[i], rest[i+1:], n-1)

>>> comb("", "abcde", 3)
abc
abd
abe
acd
ace
ade
bcd
bce
bde
cde

为了解释，递归方法用下面的例子描述:

示例:A B C D E 3的所有组合是:

A与其余2的所有组合(B C D E) B与其余2的所有组合(C D E) C与其余2的所有组合(D E)