PowerShell解决方案:

function Get-NChooseK
{
    <#
    .SYNOPSIS
    Returns all the possible combinations by choosing K items at a time from N possible items.

    .DESCRIPTION
    Returns all the possible combinations by choosing K items at a time from N possible items.
    The combinations returned do not consider the order of items as important i.e. 123 is considered to be the same combination as 231, etc.

    .PARAMETER ArrayN
    The array of items to choose from.

    .PARAMETER ChooseK
    The number of items to choose.

    .PARAMETER AllK
    Includes combinations for all lesser values of K above zero i.e. 1 to K.

    .PARAMETER Prefix
    String that will prefix each line of the output.

    .EXAMPLE
    PS C:\> Get-NChooseK -ArrayN '1','2','3' -ChooseK 3
    123

    .EXAMPLE
    PS C:\> Get-NChooseK -ArrayN '1','2','3' -ChooseK 3 -AllK
    1
    2
    3
    12
    13
    23
    123

    .EXAMPLE
    PS C:\> Get-NChooseK -ArrayN '1','2','3' -ChooseK 2 -Prefix 'Combo: '
    Combo: 12
    Combo: 13
    Combo: 23

    .NOTES
    Author : nmbell
    #>

    # Use cmdlet binding
    [CmdletBinding()]

    # Declare parameters
    Param
    (

        [String[]]
        $ArrayN

    ,   [Int]
        $ChooseK

    ,   [Switch]
        $AllK

    ,   [String]
        $Prefix = ''

    )

    BEGIN
    {
    }

    PROCESS
    {
        # Validate the inputs
        $ArrayN = $ArrayN | Sort-Object -Unique

        If ($ChooseK -gt $ArrayN.Length)
        {
            Write-Error "Can't choose $ChooseK items when only $($ArrayN.Length) are available." -ErrorAction Stop
        }

        # Control the output
        $firstK = If ($AllK) { 1 } Else { $ChooseK }

        # Get combinations
        $firstK..$ChooseK | ForEach-Object {

            $thisK = $_

            $ArrayN[0..($ArrayN.Length-($thisK--))] | ForEach-Object {
                If ($thisK -eq 0)
                {
                    Write-Output ($Prefix+$_)
                }
                Else
                {
                    Get-NChooseK -Array ($ArrayN[($ArrayN.IndexOf($_)+1)..($ArrayN.Length-1)]) -Choose $thisK -AllK:$false -Prefix ($Prefix+$_)
                }
            }

        }
    }

    END
    {
    }

}

例如:

PS C:\>Get-NChooseK -ArrayN 'A','B','C','D','E' -ChooseK 3
ABC
ABD
ABE
ACD
ACE
ADE
BCD
BCE
BDE
CDE

最近在IronScripter网站上发布了一个类似于这个问题的挑战，在那里你可以找到我的链接和其他一些解决方案。

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。

如果你可以使用SQL语法——比如，如果你使用LINQ访问一个结构或数组的字段，或者直接访问一个数据库，其中有一个名为“Alphabet”的表，只有一个字符字段“Letter”，你可以适应以下代码:

SELECT A.Letter, B.Letter, C.Letter
FROM Alphabet AS A, Alphabet AS B, Alphabet AS C
WHERE A.Letter<>B.Letter AND A.Letter<>C.Letter AND B.Letter<>C.Letter
AND A.Letter<B.Letter AND B.Letter<C.Letter

这将返回所有3个字母的组合，不管你在表格“字母表”中有多少个字母(它可以是3,8,10,27等)。

如果你想要的是所有的排列，而不是组合(也就是说，你想要“ACB”和“ABC”被视为不同的，而不是只出现一次)，只需删除最后一行(and一行)，就完成了。

Post-Edit:重新阅读问题后，我意识到需要的是通用算法，而不仅仅是选择3个项目的特定算法。Adam Hughes的答案是完整的，不幸的是我还不能投票。这个答案很简单，但只适用于你想要三样东西的时候。

我有一个用于project euler的排列算法，用python编写:

def missing(miss,src):
    "Returns the list of items in src not present in miss"
    return [i for i in src if i not in miss]


def permutation_gen(n,l):
    "Generates all the permutations of n items of the l list"
    for i in l:
        if n<=1: yield [i]
        r = [i]
        for j in permutation_gen(n-1,missing([i],l)):  yield r+j

If

n<len(l) 

你应该有所有你需要的组合，没有重复，你需要吗?

它是一个生成器，所以你可以这样使用它:

for comb in permutation_gen(3,list("ABCDEFGH")):
    print comb 

我发现这个线程很有用，我想我会添加一个Javascript解决方案，你可以弹出到Firebug。取决于你的JS引擎，如果起始字符串很大，可能会花一点时间。

function string_recurse(active, rest) {
    if (rest.length == 0) {
        console.log(active);
    } else {
        string_recurse(active + rest.charAt(0), rest.substring(1, rest.length));
        string_recurse(active, rest.substring(1, rest.length));
    }
}
string_recurse("", "abc");

输出如下:

abc
ab
ac
a
bc
b
c

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>