Question

Given a string:

String words = "Mary had a little lamb";

how to obtain a combination of sentence fragments while the order of occurrence of words in the original sentence is maintained ???

example:

{'Mary had a little lamb'}
{'Mary had a little', 'lamb'}
{'Mary had a', 'little lamb'}, {'Mary had a', 'little', 'lamb'}
{'Mary had', 'a little lamb'}, {'Mary had', 'a little', 'lamb'}, {'Mary had', 'a', 'little lamb'}, {'Mary had', 'a', 'little', 'lamb'}
{'Mary', 'had a little lamb'}, {'Mary', 'had a little', 'lamb'}, {'Mary', 'had a', 'little lamb'} and so on...

Thanks in advance 🙂

Answer 1

Think about it this way:

Mary <1> had <2> a <3> little <4> lamb

Each of these <number>s can be either true or false. If it is true, then you cut the sentence in that location.

So, if you have n+1 words, your problem gets reduced to going through binary representation of numbers with n bit, that is from 0 to 2^n-1

Examples:

0110 -> {'Mary had', 'a', 'little lamb'}
1111 -> {'Mary', 'had', 'a', 'little', 'lamb'}
0001 -> {'Mary had a little', 'lamb'}
1011 -> {'Mary', 'had a', 'little', 'lamb'}