Question

How can I find the permutations of k in a given length?

For example:

The word cat has 3 letters: How can I find all the permutations of 2 in the word cat.
Result should be: ac, at, ca, ac, etc…

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This is not a homework problem.
Any language could be used but more preferable: C/C++ or C#.
I know how to create the recursion for size LENGTH but not for a custom size.

Answer 1

Here is one in C#, which should work even with repeated characters. For example on “banana” for permutations of length 2 it gives:

ba bn ab aa an nb na nn

The basic idea is to fix the first character, then form all permutations of length k-1, then prepend the character to those k-1 length permutations. To deal with duplicate characters, we keep track of the count left (i.e the ones which can be used for sub-permutations).

Not exemplary code, but should give you the idea. (If you find bugs, let me know and I can edit).

static List<string> Permutations(Dictionary<char, int> input, int length) {
    List<string> permutations = new List<string>();

    List<char> chars = new List<char>(input.Keys);

    // Base case.
    if (length == 0) {
        permutations.Add(string.Empty);
        return permutations;
    }

    foreach (char c in chars) {

        // There are instances of this character left to use.
        if (input[c] > 0) {

            // Use one instance up.
            input[c]--;

            // Find sub-permutations of length length -1.
            List<string> subpermutations = Permutations(input, length - 1);

            // Give back the instance.
            input[c]++;

            foreach (string s in subpermutations) {

                // Prepend the character to be the first character.
                permutations.Add(s.Insert(0,new string(c,1)));

            }
        }
    }

    return permutations;
}

And here is the full program I have, to use it:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace StackOverflow {

    class Program {
        static void Main(string[] args) {
            List<string> p = Permutations("abracadabra", 3);
            foreach (string s in p) {
                Console.WriteLine(s);
            }
        }

        static List<string> Permutations(string s, int length) {
            Dictionary<char, int> input = new Dictionary<char, int>();
            foreach (char c in s) {
                if (input.ContainsKey(c)) {
                    input[c]++;
                } else {
                    input[c] = 1;
                }
            }
            return Permutations(input, length);
        }

        static List<string> Permutations(Dictionary<char, int> input, 
                                                          int length) {
            List<string> permutations = new List<string>();

            List<char> chars = new List<char>(input.Keys);
            if (length == 0) {
                permutations.Add(string.Empty);
                return permutations;
            }

            foreach (char c in chars) {
                if (input[c] > 0) {
                    input[c]--;
                    List<string> subpermutations = Permutations(input, 
                                                                length - 1);
                    input[c]++;

                    foreach (string s in subpermutations) {
                        permutations.Add(s.Insert(0,new string(c,1)));
                    }
                }
            }

            return permutations;
        }
    }
}